the northwest Atlantic (approximately 49°N, 20°W) in 1990.
(^) (After Barlow et al. 1993.)
Phytoplankton Functional Types
(^) Phytoplankton functional types are groups of phytoplankton species that have in
common a specific function of interest, e.g. calcification. Discriminating distinct
groups of phytoplankton from satellite measures of ocean color is an area of active
research. One approach is to use pigment-based size classes. Uitz et al. (2006) used
satellite measures of surface chlorophyll and empirical relationships linking the
amount of surface chlorophyll to the pattern of its vertical distribution and the relative
proportions in three size categories: pico-, nano, and microplankton. To simplify the
analysis, Uitz et al. (2010) used seven pigments to estimate how much of the
chlorophyll-a is associated with each size group (Table 2.3).
Table 2.3 Pigments used as biomarkers to estimate abundance of phytoplankton
functional types from satellite-derived estimates of surface chlorophyll
(Uitz et al. 2010).
Equations for calculating the fraction (f) of chlorophyll attributed to each size group: