Realm: Marine
Climate: Temperate
Biome: Temperate shelf and seas ecoregions
Central latitude: 50.250000
Central longitude: -4.217000
Duration: 18 years, from 1992 to 2009

17841 records

170 distinct species

Across the time series Phytoflagellate is the most frequently occurring species

Methods

Sampling and enumeration of phytoplanktonWeekly phytoplankton samples were collected from theWestern Channel Observatory (WCO) (www.westernchannelobservatory.org.uk) long-term monitoringstation L4 (508 15.000N. 48 13.020W) betweenOctober 1992 and December 2007. Water was sampledfrom a depth of 10 m using a 10 L Niskin bottle.A 200 mL subsample was then removed from the bottleand immediately fixed with 2% (final concentration)Lugol?s iodine solution (Throndsen. 1978). A second200 mL sub-sample was then taken and preserved withneutral formaldehyde for the enumeration of coccolithophores.Samples were returned to Plymouth MarineLaboratory and stored in cool. dark conditions untilanalysis using light microscopy and the Utermo?hl countingtechnique (Utermo?hl. 1958). Samples were gentlyhomogenized before settling a 50 mL subsample fromthe Lugol?s-preserved sample. and a 100 mL subsamplefrom the formaldehyde-preserved sample. Subsampleswere settled for .48 h and all cells .2 mm wereidentified. where possible to species level. and enumeratedat either 200 or 400 magnification using aLeica DM IRB inverted microscope. Cells with a meandiameter of between 2 and 10 mm and that had recognizableflagellae and/or plastids (excluding diatoms anddinoflagellates) were categorized as ?phyto-flagellates?(Holligan and Harbour. 1977; Boalch et al.. 1978). Cellswere divided into seven functional groups; phytoflagellates.diatoms. Phaeocystis. coccolithophorids. dinoflagellates.heterotrophic dinoflagellates and ciliates.Further details on the Western Channel Observatoryand the time-series station L4 are provided by Smythet al. (Smyth et al.. 2010) for the environmental parametersand Eloire et al. (Eloire et al.. 2010) for themesozooplankton. Unit of abundance = Count, Unit of biomass = NA

Citation(s)

Widdicombe, C. E., Eloire, D., Harbour, D., Harris, R. P. & Somerfield, P. J. (2010) Long-term phytoplankton community dynamics in the Western English Channel. Journal of Plankton Research, 32, 643–655. doi:10.1093/plankt/fbp127
Widdicombe, C. E., Eloire, D., Harbour, D., Harris, R. P. & Somerfield, P. J. (2010) Time series of phyto- and microzooplankton abundance and composition at station L4 in the English Channel from 1988 to 2009. doi:10.1594/PANGAEA.758061