Climate change is likely to have large effects on the Baltic Sea ecosystem. Simulations indicate 2–4 °C warming and 50–80 % decrease in ice cover by 2100. Precipitation may increase ~30 % in the north, causing increased land runoff of allochthonous organic matter (AOM) and organic pollutants and decreased salinity. Coupled physical–biogeochemical models indicate that, in the south, bottom-water anoxia may spread, reducing cod recruitment and increasing sediment phosphorus release, thus promoting cyanobacterial blooms. In the north, heterotrophic bacteria will be favored by AOM, while phytoplankton production may be reduced. Extra trophic levels in the food web may increase energy losses and consequently reduce fish production. Future management of the Baltic Sea must consider the effects of climate change on the ecosystem dynamics and functions, as well as the effects of anthropogenic nutrient and pollutant load. Monitoring should have a holistic approach, encompassing both autotrophic (phytoplankton) and heterotrophic (e.g., bacterial) processes.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s13280-015-0654-8) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Marine bacterioplankton are essential in global nutrient cycling and organic matter turnover. Time-series analyses, often at monthly sampling frequencies, have established the paramount role of abiotic and biotic variables in structuring bacterioplankton communities and productivities. However, fine-scale seasonal microbial activities, and underlying biological principles, are not fully understood. We report results from four consecutive years of high-frequency time-series sampling in the Baltic Proper. Pronounced temporal dynamics in most investigated microbial variables were observed, including bacterial heterotrophic production, plankton biomass, extracellular enzyme activities, substrate uptake rate constants of glucose, pyruvate, acetate, amino acids, and leucine, as well as nutrient limitation bioassays. Spring blooms consisting of diatoms and dinoflagellates were followed by elevated bacterial heterotrophic production and abundances. During summer, bacterial productivity estimates increased even further, coinciding with an initial cyanobacterial bloom in early July. However, bacterial abundances only increased following a second cyanobacterial bloom, peaking in August. Uptake rate constants for the different measured carbon compounds varied seasonally and inter-annually and were highly correlated to bacterial productivity estimates, temperature, and cyanobacterial abundances. Further, we detected nutrient limitation in response to environmental conditions in a multitude of microbial variables, such as elevated productivities in nutrient bioassays, changes in enzymatic activities, or substrate preferences. Variations among biotic variables often occurred on time scales of days to a few weeks, yet often spanning several sampling occasions. Such dynamics might not have been captured by sampling at monthly intervals, as compared to more predictable transitions in abiotic variables such as temperature or nutrient concentrations. Our study indicates that high resolution analyses of microbial biomass and productivity parameters can help out in the development of biogeochemical and food web models disentangling the microbial black box.

The microbial part of the pelagic food web is seldom characterized in models despite its major contribution to biogeochemical cycles. In the Baltic Sea, spatial and temporal high frequency sampling over three years revealed changes in heterotrophic bacteria and phytoplankton coupling (biomass and production) related to hydrographic properties of the ecosystem. Phyto- and bacterioplankton were bottom-up driven in both coastal and offshore areas. Cold winter temperature was essential for phytoplankton to conform to the successional sequence in temperate waters. In terms of annual carbon production, the loss of the spring bloom (diatoms and dinoflagellates) after mild winters tended not to be compensated for by other taxa, not even summer cyanobacteria. These results improve our ability to project Baltic Sea ecosystem response to short- and long-term environmental changes.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s13280-015-0662-8) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

We show high feasibility of using cement industrial flue gas as CO 2 source for microalgal cultivation. The toxicity of cement flue gas (12-15% CO 2 ) on algal biomass production and composition (lipids, proteins, carbohydrates) was tested using monocultures (Tetraselmis sp., green algae, Skeletonema marinoi, diatom) and natural brackish communities. The performance of a natural microalgal community dominated by spring diatoms was compared to a highly productive diatom monoculture S. marinoi fed with flue gas or air-CO 2 mixture. Flue gas was not toxic to any of the microalgae tested. Instead we show high quality of microalgal biomass (lipids 20-30% DW, proteins 20-28% DW, carbohydrates 15-30% DW) and high production when cultivated with flue gas addition compared to CO 2 -air. Brackish Baltic Sea microalgal communities performed equally or better in terms of biomass quality and production than documented monocultures of diatom and green algae, often used in algal research and development. Hence, we conclude that microalgae should be included in biological solutions to transform waste into renewable resources in coastal waters.

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