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Rapid phytoplankton response to wind forcing influences productivity in upwelling bays

Rapid phytoplankton response to wind forcing influences productivity in upwelling bays
Rapid phytoplankton response to wind forcing influences productivity in upwelling bays

Bays are often ecological hotspots within highly-productive eastern boundary upwelling systems. Though the physics of such bays are well understood, there is no consensus about the factors underlying their high productivity. Three weeks of high-temporal-resolution observations in two long, narrow bays (Rías Baixas, NW-Iberia), showed that during an upwelling pulse, deep, nutrient-rich isopycnals rose into the euphotic zone inside the rías in a few hours. The response of the isopycnals to changes in wind forcing is approximately three times faster inside the rías than the Ekman spin-up time, triggering rapid nutrient uptake and subsequent formation of a subsurface chlorophyll and production maximum. The tight coupling and rapid response of phytoplankton growth to wind forcing could explain the higher productivity of the rías, and also be at play in other upwelling bays with similar morphologies and orientations. Resolving short-term variability of physical–biological coupling is crucial to discern the future evolution of upwelling bays.

529-537
Broullón, Esperanza
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Franks, Peter J.S.
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Fernández Castro, Bieito
8017e93c-d5ee-4bba-b443-9c72ca512d61
Gilcoto, Miguel
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Fuentes-Lema, Antonio
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Pérez-Lorenzo, Maria
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Fernández, Emilio
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Mouriño-Carballido, Beatriz
1bfd941d-9ec6-473f-94bd-bb6faac56fa5
Broullón, Esperanza
f90cfa74-83be-4bed-8ef6-32cc679c1049
Franks, Peter J.S.
6ab2b887-9042-40a8-a6ba-429bfbcdbe6d
Fernández Castro, Bieito
8017e93c-d5ee-4bba-b443-9c72ca512d61
Gilcoto, Miguel
431de478-8e3a-4e3a-83eb-bd6f27c9a82b
Fuentes-Lema, Antonio
94e10418-131b-4d62-8ef4-bad50c41cea3
Pérez-Lorenzo, Maria
eeb49b67-e826-40cf-9240-6343d6bb0f9f
Fernández, Emilio
c7f88845-c168-4466-a1c2-e6470a1f63d5
Mouriño-Carballido, Beatriz
1bfd941d-9ec6-473f-94bd-bb6faac56fa5

Broullón, Esperanza, Franks, Peter J.S., Fernández Castro, Bieito, Gilcoto, Miguel, Fuentes-Lema, Antonio, Pérez-Lorenzo, Maria, Fernández, Emilio and Mouriño-Carballido, Beatriz (2023) Rapid phytoplankton response to wind forcing influences productivity in upwelling bays. Limnology and Oceanography Letters, 8 (3), 529-537. (doi:10.1002/lol2.10309).

Record type: Letter

Abstract

Bays are often ecological hotspots within highly-productive eastern boundary upwelling systems. Though the physics of such bays are well understood, there is no consensus about the factors underlying their high productivity. Three weeks of high-temporal-resolution observations in two long, narrow bays (Rías Baixas, NW-Iberia), showed that during an upwelling pulse, deep, nutrient-rich isopycnals rose into the euphotic zone inside the rías in a few hours. The response of the isopycnals to changes in wind forcing is approximately three times faster inside the rías than the Ekman spin-up time, triggering rapid nutrient uptake and subsequent formation of a subsurface chlorophyll and production maximum. The tight coupling and rapid response of phytoplankton growth to wind forcing could explain the higher productivity of the rías, and also be at play in other upwelling bays with similar morphologies and orientations. Resolving short-term variability of physical–biological coupling is crucial to discern the future evolution of upwelling bays.

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Accepted/In Press date: 22 December 2022
e-pub ahead of print date: 3 March 2023
Published date: June 2023
Additional Information: Funding Information: The authors would like to thank the captain, crew, and technicians of R/V Ramón Margalef as well as Nicolás Villacieros, Fernando Alonso, and Waldo Redondo from IIM-CSIC and Paloma Chouciño from Universidade de Vigo for their help in processing data from land during the REMEDIOS-TLP cruise and in the preparation of the equipment before. This research was funded by project REMEDIOS (CTM2016-75451-C2-1-R) to BM-C from the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness. E.B. acknowledges a predoctoral fellowship (ED481A-2019/288) from Xunta de Galicia, co-funded by FSE Galicia (2014–2020). BFC was supported by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Innovation through a Juan de la Cierva-Formación postdoctoral fellowship (grant number FJCI-641 2015-25712) and by the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No. 834330 (SO-CUP). Bathymetry data used in the Fig. S1 was obtained from GEBCO Compilation Group 2020 (https://doi.org/10.5285/a29c5465-b138-234d-e053-6c86abc040b9). Funding Information: The authors would like to thank the captain, crew, and technicians of R/V Ramón Margalef as well as Nicolás Villacieros, Fernando Alonso, and Waldo Redondo from IIM‐CSIC and Paloma Chouciño from Universidade de Vigo for their help in processing data from land during the REMEDIOS‐TLP cruise and in the preparation of the equipment before. This research was funded by project REMEDIOS (CTM2016‐75451‐C2‐1‐R) to BM‐C from the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness. E.B. acknowledges a predoctoral fellowship (ED481A‐2019/288) from Xunta de Galicia, co‐funded by FSE Galicia (2014–2020). BFC was supported by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Innovation through a Juan de la Cierva‐Formación postdoctoral fellowship (grant number FJCI‐641 2015‐25712) and by the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under the Marie Skłodowska‐Curie grant agreement No. 834330 (SO‐CUP). Bathymetry data used in the Fig. S1 was obtained from GEBCO Compilation Group 2020 ( https://doi.org/10.5285/a29c5465-b138-234d-e053-6c86abc040b9 ). Publisher Copyright: © 2023 The Authors. Limnology and Oceanography Letters published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of Association for the Sciences of Limnology and Oceanography.

Identifiers

Local EPrints ID: 476576
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/476576
PURE UUID: ffb80b34-114f-443e-924d-1a06182829d7
ORCID for Bieito Fernández Castro: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0001-7797-854X

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Date deposited: 09 May 2023 16:42
Last modified: 18 Mar 2024 03:59

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Contributors

Author: Esperanza Broullón
Author: Peter J.S. Franks
Author: Miguel Gilcoto
Author: Antonio Fuentes-Lema
Author: Maria Pérez-Lorenzo
Author: Emilio Fernández
Author: Beatriz Mouriño-Carballido

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