Cal Poly RSS

The majority of the yearly organic carbon production int he coastal regions of the Southern ocean occurs during summer blooms. Changes in the quantity and quality of the phytoplankton standing crop during this period will likely impact organisms that occupy higher trophic levels within the ecosystem. Here we report a recurrent shift in the dominant phytoplankton taxa during the austral summer in a coastal region along the Antarctic Peninsula. The pattern was observed each year between 1991 and 1996 despite radically different biomass concentrations and meteorological and hydrographic conditions. We show that a repeated dominance of cryptophytes (Cryptophyceae) during the austral summer was significantly related (MANOVA; P