The Guadiana estuary, located between Portugal and Spain, has the fourth largest drainage basin of Iberian river systems. Up to 75% of the catchment area has been regulated by dams since the early 1970s. During the 1980s and 1990s, an increasing occurrence of summer cyanobacteria blooms dominated by the potentially toxic Microcystis spp. was reported. In an effort to understand the causes of recurrent noxious blooms in the Guadiana estuary, nutrients (phosphorus, nitrogen [nitrate, nitrite and ammonium], and silicon [silicic acid], chlorophyll a and phytoplankton abundance, specific composition and biomass were evaluated during field surveys, from April 1997 to March 1998. A pattern of successive blooms of different phytoplankton assemblages was observed throughout this period. Diatoms (nano-sized, chain-forming) dominated an early spring bloom (max. 18 × 10 3 cells ml ) and then a cyanobacteria bloom (> 6 × 10 4 cells ml -1) quickly followed during late spring through to early summer. From July to September, a major cyanobacteria bloom dominated by the potentially toxic Microcystis spp. (> 4 × 10 5 cells ml -1) developed in the freshwater zone. The results indicate that high winter loads of nitrogen and phosphorus led to the depletion of silicate (down to as low as 0.2 µM) during the early spring diatom bloom, which conditioned the successive phytoplankton assemblages during the remaining productive period. Low monthly discharge rates during spring and summer further provided an environment with low Si:N and N:P relative availability which, coupled with high water-column temperature (> 21°C), seemed to favour the dominance of cyanobacteria over chlorophytes during the summer.

Nitrate and ammonium are the most important nitrogen sources for phytoplankton growth. Differential utilization of inorganic nitrogenous compounds by phytoplankton has been observed and may have significant impacts on primary productivity at local scales. We used enrichment experiments with natural phytoplankton populations from the freshwater tidal zone of the Guadiana estuary, a coastal ecosystem increasingly subjected to anthropogenic influences, to study the effects of nitrate and ammonium on N-consumption and phytoplankton growth. In addition, we used combined additions of nitrate and ammonium to understand the inhibitory effect of ammonium over nitrate uptake. Ammonium concentrations in the freshwater tidal reaches of the Guadiana estuary throughout the sampling period were too low to exert an inhibitory effect on nitrate uptake or a toxic effect on phytoplankton growth. Nitrate was clearly the main nitrogen source for phytoplankton at the study site. Overall, nitrate seemed to become limiting at concentrations lower than 20 lM and N-limitation was particularly significant during summer. A trend of decreasing nitrate uptake with increasing ammonium concentrations and uptake suggested an overall preference for ammonium. However, preference for ammonium was group-specific, and it was observed mainly in green algae and cyanobacteria. In fact, cyanobacteria relied only on ammonium as their N-source. On the contrary, diatoms preferred nitrate, and did not respond to ammonium additions. The increasing eutrophication in the Guadiana estuary and particularly increased inputs of nitrogen as ammonium due to urban waste effluents may result in a shift in phytoplankton community composition, towards a dominance of cyanobacteria and green algae.

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Phytoplankton seasonal and interannual variability in the Guadiana upper estuary was analyzed during 1996-2005, a period that encompassed a climatic controlled reduction in river flow that was superimposed on the construction of a dam. Phytoplankton seasonal patterns revealed an alternation between a persistent light limitation and episodic nutrient limitation. Phytoplankton succession, with early spring diatom blooms and summer-early fall cyanobacterial blooms, was apparently driven by changes in nutrients, water temperature, and turbulence, clearly demonstrating the role of river flow and climate variability. Light intensity in the mixed layer was a prevalent driver of phytoplankton interannual variability, and the increased turbidity caused by the Alqueva dam construction was linked to pronounced decreases in chlorophyll a concentration, particularly at the start and end of the phytoplankton growing period. Decreases in annual maximum and average abundances of diatoms, green algae, and cyanobacteria were also detected. Furthermore, chlorophyll a decreases after dam filling and a decrease in turbidity may point to a shift from light limitation towards a more nutrient-limited mode in the near future.

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