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Sources of uncertainty in assessment of marine phytoplankton communities

  • WATER BODIES IN EUROPE
  • Published:
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Abstract

Characterisation of phytoplankton communities is important for classification of the ecological status of marine waters. In order to design a monitoring programme, it is important to know what degree of variation in the measurements occur at each level (water body, station and sample), so that resources can be spent in a way that maximise the precision of the measured parameters. Seven European water bodies were sampled to assess the variation in pigment concentrations and population densities attributed to water body, station and sample levels. It was found that the main proportion of the variation between pigment measurements was explained by the variation between stations (12–91% of variation) followed by the variation between water bodies (0–89% of variation). For measurements of population density, the main proportion of the variation between densities of cells recorded was explained by the variation between the taxonomists counting the samples (61%), whilst the main proportion of the variation between numbers of taxa recorded was explained by the variation between water bodies (83%). When the cell density of the nine dominant classes were analysed separately, the main proportion of variation was explained at the water body level for all but two class.

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Acknowledgment

The project received financial support from the EU project ‘WISER’ contract # 226273.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Bioscience, Aarhus University, Frederiksborgvej 399, P.O. Box 358, 4000, Roskilde, Denmark

    Karsten Mikael Dromph & Peter Henriksen

  2. Instituto Mediterráneo de Estudios Avanzados (IMEDEA), Miquel Marqués 21, 07190, Esporles, Islas Baleares, Spain

    Susana Agusti

  3. Dipartimento di Scienze e Tecnologie Biologiche ed Ambientali, University of Salento, 73100, Lecce, Italy

    Alberto Basset & Leonilde Roselli

  4. Marine Research Division, AZTI-Tecnalia, Herrera Kaia Portualdea z/g, 20110, Pasaia, Spain

    Javier Franco & Marta Revilla

  5. IMAR, Institute of Marine Research, FCT, University of Coimbra, 3004-517, Coimbra, Portugal

    John Icely

  6. Marine Research Centre, Finnish Environment Institute, P.O. Box 140, 00251, Helsinki, Finland

    Sirpa Lehtinen

  7. Institute of Oceanology, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Parvi Mai Str. 40, P.O. Box 152, 9000, Varna, Bulgaria

    Snejana Moncheva

  8. Norwegian Institute for Water Research, P.O. Box 173, 0411, Kjelsås, Oslo, Norway

    Kai Sørensen

  9. The Oceans Institute and School of Plant Biology, The University of Western Australia, 35 Stirling Highway, Crawley, WA, 6009, Australia

    Susana Agusti

Authors
  1. Karsten Mikael Dromph
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  2. Susana Agusti
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  3. Alberto Basset
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  4. Javier Franco
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  5. Peter Henriksen
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  6. John Icely
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  7. Sirpa Lehtinen
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  8. Snejana Moncheva
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  9. Marta Revilla
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  10. Leonilde Roselli
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  11. Kai Sørensen
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Karsten Mikael Dromph.

Additional information

Guest editors: C. K. Feld, A. Borja, L. Carvalho & D. Hering / Water bodies in Europe: integrative systems to assess ecological status and recovery

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Dromph, K.M., Agusti, S., Basset, A. et al. Sources of uncertainty in assessment of marine phytoplankton communities. Hydrobiologia 704, 253–264 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10750-012-1353-0

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10750-012-1353-0

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