Small phytoplankton contribution to the total primary production in the Amundsen Sea
Abstract. Small-sized phytoplankton is anticipated to be more important for phytoplankton community in a recent changing ocean condition. However, little information on the contribution of small-sized phytoplankton to overall phytoplankton production is currently available in the Amundsen Sea. To determine the contributions of small-sized phytoplankton to total biomass and primary production, carbon and nitrogen uptake rates of total and small-sized phytoplankton were obtained from 12 productivity stations in the Amundsen Sea. The daily carbon uptake rates of total phytoplankton averaged in this study were 0.42 g C m−2 d−1 (S.D. = ±0.30 g C m−2 d−1) and 0.84 g C m−2 d−1 (S.D. = ±0.18 g C m−2 d−1) whereas the daily total nitrogen (nitrate and ammonium) uptake rates were 0.12 g N m−2 d−1 (S.D. = ±0.09 g N m−2 d−1) and 0.21 g N m−2 d−1 (S.D. = ±0.11 g N m−2 d−1), respectively for non-polynya and polynya regions, which were within the ranges reported previously. Small phytoplankton contributed 26.9 % and 27.7 % to the total carbon and nitrogen uptake rates of phytoplankton in this study, respectively, which were relatively higher than the chlorophyll-a contribution (19.4 %) of small phytoplankton. For a comparison of different regions, the contributions for chlorophyll-a concentration and primary production of small phytoplankton averaged from all the non-polynya stations were 42.4 % and 50.8 %, which were significantly higher than those (7.9 % and 14.9 %, respectively) in polynya region. A strong negative correlation (r2 = 0.790, p