Doug S. Mackie

Comment on 'Impacts of aeolian dust deposition on phytoplankton dynamics in Queensland coastal waters' by Shaw et al. (2008)

The central premise of the paper by Shaw et al. (2008) (hereafter SGM) is that phytoplankton in coastal waters of Queensland, Australia, were nutrient-limited and that biomass increased immediately following a large dust storm in October 2002. I will show that (i) the timing of the phytoplankton response precludes the dust storm as a causative agent for chlorophyll increases and (ii) it is not clear that there was actually any change in chlorophyll in response to the dust storm.