Spatial and temporal variability of dominant phytoplankton size classes in the Mediterranean Sea from remote sensing
Author(s)
Di Cicco, Annalisa
Date Issued
June 10, 2014
Type
Doctoral Thesis
Abstract
Thanks to the key rule that phytoplankton plays in the global Carbon cycle and in the
regulation of the climate processes, information about the composition of its community
structure is today one the most important scientific lines of research.
Recent trends in the comprehension of the community structure as well as the
ecological state of the aquatic ecosystems are based on the identification of functional traits
able to act as “non- taxonomic” descriptors. One of the most important descriptor for the
phytoplankton community is considered the “cell size”, thanks to the existent relationship
between dimensions and pigmentary content, different taxa or stages of growth in the same
taxon, photosynthetic efficiency and bio-optical phytoplankton properties. In some cases size
is also able to supply information on the biogeochemical functions and roles of the
community itself. In this context remote sensing technologies provide a great tool for a
synoptic observation at spatial and temporal scale of the marine ecosystem.
In the recent years several physical, biological and ecological models have been
proposed to estimate Phytoplankton Size Classes from remote sensing data.
The aim of this work is to investigate the spatial distribution and temporal variability
of three dominant Phytoplankton Size Classes (PSCs) in the Mediterranean Sea during the
SeaWiFS mission from 1998 to 2010.
This work is organized as follows. The first introductive chapter clarifies the base
concepts of Size as community descriptor (section a), ecological rule of phytoplankton
(section b), Remote Sensing technique in the Ocean Observation (section c) and characterizes
the study area (section d). In the chapter 2, the in-situ (section a) and remote (section b)
methods and data selected for this work with the algorithms investigated are represented. The
third chapter shows the algorithm’s validation and summarizes the results. Comments are
exposed in the chapter 4. Conclusions and some directions of future work are indicated in the
chapter 5.
Additional information
Dottorato di ricerca in Ecologia e gestione delle risorse biologiche
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