Zachary W. Brown

Massive phytoplankton blooms under Arctic Sea ice

In midsummer, diatoms have taken advantage of thinning ice cover to feed in nutrient-rich waters. Phytoplankton blooms over Arctic Ocean continental shelves are thought to be restricted to waters free of sea ice. Here, we document a massive phytoplankton bloom beneath fully consolidated pack ice far from the ice edge in the Chukchi Sea, where light transmission has increased in recent decades because of thinning ice cover and proliferation of melt ponds. The bloom was characterized by high diatom biomass and rates of growth and primary production. Evidence suggests that under-ice phytoplankton blooms may be more widespread over nutrient-rich Arctic continental shelves and that satellite-based estimates of annual primary production in these waters may be underestimated by up to 10-fold.

Nitrogen limitation of the summer phytoplankton and heterotrophic prokaryote communities in the Chukchi Sea

Major changes to Arctic marine ecosystems have resulted in longer growing seasons with increased phytoplankton production over larger areas. In the Chukchi Sea, the high productivity fuels intense benthic denitrification creating a nitrogen (N) deficit that is transported through the Arctic to the Atlantic Ocean, where it likely fuels nitrogen fixation. Given the rapid pace of environmental change and the potentially globally significant N deficit, we conducted experiments aimed at understanding phytoplankton and microbial N utilization in the Chukchi Sea. Ship-board experiments tested the effect of NO3- additions on both phytoplankton and heterotrophic prokaryote abundance, community composition, photophysiology, carbon fixation and NO3- uptake rates. Results support the critical role of NO3- in limiting summer phytoplankton communities to small cells with low production rates. NO3- additions increased particulate concentrations, abundance of large diatoms, and rates of carbon fixation and NO3- uptake by cells >1 µm. Increases in the quantum yield and electron turnover rate of photosystem II in NO3- treatments suggested that phytoplankton in the ambient dissolved N environment were N starved and unable to build new, or repair damaged, reaction centers. While some increases in heterotrophic prokaryote abundance and production were noted with NO3- amendments, phytoplankton competition or grazers likely dampened these responses. Trends toward a warmer more stratified Chukchi Sea will likely enhance summer oligotrophic conditions and further N starve Chukchi Sea phytoplankton communities.