Research article1999Peer reviewedOpen access
North Atlantic Oscillation primary productivity and toxic phytoplankton in the Gullmar Fjord, Sweden (1985-1996)
Belgrano, Andrea; Lindahl, Odd; Hernroth, Bodil
Abstract
The evaluation of the time-series data set of primary production, chlorophyll a (1985-1996) and toxic phytoplankton species abundance measurements (1986-1996) in the Gullmar Fjord as part of the Swedish Monitoring Program, revealed the importance of considering climatic and environmental forces among the factors that may be responsible for the observed fluctuations. The results suggested that the occurrence of toxic phytoplankton blooms in the Skagerrak may be related to changes in the phase of the Worth Atlantic Oscillation (NAO). The Dinophysis species were related to the NAO, temperature and salinity and the fluctuations in the phytoplankton biomass expressed as chlorophyll a were also shown to be related to the NAG. The results pointed to the need to understand further the role played by climatic and environmental forces in relation to the formation and duration of harmful algal blooms and the need for continuous quality monitoring programmes and novel statistical methods for detecting trends and cycles in ecological time-series related to environmental forces.
Keywords
North Atlantic Oscillation; phytoplankton; primary productivity
Published in
Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences
1999, Volume: 266, number: 1418, pages: 425-430
Publisher: ROYAL SOC
UKÄ Subject classification
Ecology
Publication identifier
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.1999.0655
Permanent link to this page (URI)
https://res.slu.se/id/publ/43123