ABSTRACT. New England coastal and adjacent Nova Scotia shelfwaters have a reduced buffering capacity because of significant freshwater input, making the region's waters potentially more vulnerable to coastal acidification. Nutrient loading and heavy precipitation events further acidify the region's poorly buffered coastal waters. Despite the apparent vulnerability of these waters, and fisheries' and mariculture's significant dependence on calcifying species, the community lacks the ability to confidently predict how the region's ecosystems will respond to continued ocean and coastal acidification. Here, we discuss ocean and coastal acidification processes specific to New England coastal and Nova Scotia shelf waters and review current understanding of the biological consequences most relevant to the region. We also identify key research and monitoring needs to be addressed and highlight existing capacities that should be leveraged to advance a regional understanding of ocean and coastal acidification.
a b s t r a c tThe spring phytoplankton bloom on the US Northeast Continental Shelf is a feature of the ecosystem production cycle that varies annually in timing, spatial extent, and magnitude. To quantify this variability, we analyzed remotely-sensed ocean color data at two spatial scales, one based on ecologically defined sub-units of the ecosystem (production units) and the other on a regular grid (0.5°). Five units were defined: Gulf of Maine East and West, Georges Bank, and Middle Atlantic Bight North and South. The units averaged 47 Â 10 3 km 2 in size. The initiation and termination of the spring bloom were determined using change-point analysis with constraints on what was identified as a bloom based on climatological bloom patterns. A discrete spring bloom was detected in most years over much of the western Gulf of Maine production unit. However, bloom frequency declined in the eastern Gulf of Maine and transitioned to frequencies as low as 50% along the southern flank of the Georges Bank production unit. Detectable spring blooms were episodic in the Middle Atlantic Bight production units. In the western Gulf of Maine, bloom duration was inversely related to bloom start day; thus, early blooms tended to be longer lasting and larger magnitude blooms. We view this as a phenological mismatch between bloom timing and the "top-down" grazing pressure that terminates a bloom. Estimates of secondary production were available from plankton surveys that provided spring indices of zooplankton biovolume. Winter chlorophyll biomass had little effect on spring zooplankton biovolume, whereas spring chlorophyll biomass had mixed effects on biovolume. There was evidence of a "bottom up" response seen on Georges Bank where spring zooplankton biovolume was positively correlated with the concentration of chlorophyll. However, in the western Gulf of Maine, biovolume was uncorrelated with chlorophyll concentration, but was positively correlated with bloom start and negatively correlated with magnitude. This observation is consistent with both a "top-down" mechanism of control of the bloom and a "bottom-up" effect of bloom timing on zooplankton grazing. Our inability to form a consistent model of these relationships across adjacent systems underscores the need for further research.Published by Elsevier Ltd.
We report here the results of ten oceanographic survey cruises carried out in the Gulf of Maine - Georges Bank region of the Northwest Atlantic during the late spring to summer period in 2007, 2008 and 2010, for which we examine and characterize relationships among dissolved inorganic nutrient fields, water mass dynamics and cell densities of the toxic dinoflagellate Alexandrium fundyense. Nutrients are supplied to continental shelf waters of the Gulf of Maine - Georges Bank region by inflows of deep offshore water masses; once in the Gulf they are transported with the residual circulation and mix with surface waters, both in the Gulf and on the Bank. Those fluxes of offshore water masses and their nutrient loads are the major source of nutrients for phytoplankton production in the region, including annual blooms of A. fundyense in the Gulf and on Georges Bank. This much is already known. We suggest here that the locations and magnitude of A. fundyense blooms are controlled in part by variable nutrient fluxes to the interior Gulf of Maine from offshore, and, those interior Gulf of Maine waters are, in turn, the main nutrient source to Georges Bank, which are brought onto the Bank by tidal pumping on the Northern Flank. We present evidence that nitrate is the initial form of nitrogenous nutrient for A. fundyense blooms, but it is quickly depleted to limiting concentrations of less than 0.5 μM, at which time continued growth and maintenance of the population is likely fueled by recycled ammonium. We also show that phosphate may be the limiting nutrient over much of Georges Bank in summer, allowing recycled ammonium concentrations to increase. Our temperature-salinity analyses reveal spatial and temporal (seasonal and interannual) variability in the relative proportions of two deep source waters that enter the Gulf of Maine at depth through the Northeast Channel: Warm Slope Water (WSW) and Labrador Slope Water (LSW). Those two source waters are known to vary in their nutrient loads, with nitrate concentrations about 50% higher in WSW than LSW, for example, and as such the proportions of these two water masses to one another are important determinants of the overall nutrient loads in the interior Gulf. In addition to these deep slope water fluxes, we show evidence here of episodic fluxes of relatively fresh and low-nutrient shelf waters from the Nova Scotian Shelf, which enter the Gulf in pulses at depths between the surface and approximately 150 m, displacing deep slope waters, and consequently they significantly dilute the Gulf's interior waters, reducing nutrient concentrations and, in turn, affect the magnitude of A. fundyense blooms.
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