Evaluation of Phytoplankton Population Metrics as Indicators of Environmental Flows
Phytoplankton production and diversity in estuaries has a significant influence on fisheries production, health of marine life, and elemental cycles. Thus, phytoplankton are an important component of coastal ecosystem health.
Phytoplankton can attain high growth rates (doubling times of ≤ 1 day) and respond rapidly to environmental perturbations. Modern field-based tools such as the Imaging FlowCytobot can allow for near real-time, continuous assessment of phytoplankton biomass and diversity via automated approaches, while laboratory tools including HPLC and FlowCam can likewise support rapid assessment from discrete water samples. The ability to rapidly assess phytoplankton is advantageous in that it fulfills the prompt data needs for adaptive management purposes, unlike other indicators (benthos, fish) that may take much longer to analyze manually. These factors highlight the potential value in adopting phytoplankton metrics as bioindicators.
Freshwater inflow influences estuarine phytoplankton growth through multiple interacting factors, including but not limited to nutrient regime, flushing time and light availability.
The goals of this proposed study are:
- to understand the relationship between freshwater inflow variability and estuarine phytoplankton biomass/diversity, and
- to combine this information with an assessment of existing sampling/analytical tools to determine whether phytoplankton are feasible indicators of freshwater inflow to estuaries.