High-resolution sediment trap study of organic-walled dinoflagellate cyst production and biogenic silica flux in Saanich Inlet (BC, Canada)

Physico-chemical and biological factors influencing dinoflagellate cyst production in the Cariaco Basin

“…The Cariaco Basin sediment trap record shows that heterotrophic cyst taxa, particularly of the family Protoperidiniaceae, dominate the dinoflagellate cyst assemblages, consistently with sediment trap studies from other upwelling systems 20 (Zonneveld and Brummer, 2000;Susek et al, 2005;Ribeiro and Amorim, 2008;Pitcher and Joyce, 2009;Zonneveld et al, 2010;Bringué et al, 2013) or nutrient-rich regions without upwelling (e.g., Harland and Pudsey, 1999;Fujii and Matsuoka, 2006;Pospelova et al, 2010;Price and Pospelova, 2011). The Cariaco Basin is among the most productive systems in the world, with average cyst fluxes to the trap (17.1 × 10 3 cysts m -2 day -1 ) most similar to fluxes reported from the NW Arabian Sea (Zonneveld and Brummer, 2000), about one order of magnitude higher than fluxes recorded at a station located ~ 370 25 km off Cape Blanc (Susek et al, 2005;Zonneveld et al, 2010) and about two orders of magnitude lower than a record from a near-shore station off Cape Columbine in the southern Benguela upwelling system (Pitcher and Joyce, 2009).…”

“…Protoperidiniaceae are clearly associated with active upwelling (with the highest fluxes recorded during moderate to strong upwelling events), including S. quanta, Q. concreta and S. nephroides, which are known to have a particularly good relationship with diatoms (e.g., Jacobson and Anderson, 1986;Dale et al, 2002;Radi and de Vernal, 2008;Pospelova et al, 2008Pospelova et al, , 2010Limoges et al, 2010;Price and Pospelova, 2011;Bringué et al, 2013Bringué et al, , 2014. Our SBC type shows a clear preference for moderate to strong upwelling conditions as well (Fig.…”

“…Interestingly, higher fluxes of cysts of P. fukuyoi were also recorded in the Santa Barbara Basin under similar circumstances, when a short, secondary upwelling pulse interrupted relaxed upwelling conditions (Bringué et al, 2013). Other sediment trap records of P. fukuyoi cyst production from the Strait of Georgia and Saanich Inlet (Price and Pospelova, 2011) in the productive waters of coastal southwestern Canada also indicate higher fluxes during the warmest months of the year (Mertens et al, 2013). 25…”

“…Zonneveld et al, 2013, and references therein). Alternatively, sediment trap records can resolve the seasonality in cyst production and thus considerably improve the accuracy of environmental signals associated with each dinoflagellate species (e.g., Dale, 1992;Dale and Dale, 1992;Morquecho and Lechuga-Deveze, 2004;Susek et al, 2005;Fujii and Matsuoka, 2006;Pitcher and Joyce, 2009;Howe et al, 2010;Pospelova et al, 2010, in press;Zonneveld et al, 2010;Price and Pospelova, 2011;Bringué et al, 2013;Prebble et al, 2013;Heikkilä et al, 2016). 5…”

Dinoflagellate cysts production in the north-western Adriatic Sea

“…However, much fewer are the studies that estimated cyst fluxes along the water column in coastal areas (e.g., Fujii & Matsuoka, 2006;Pospelova et al, 2010;Price & Pospelova, 2011;Shin et al, 2012;Bringue et al, 2013;Fertouna-Bellakhal et al, 2014) and even fewer are those that related cyst production with the seasonal pattern of the planktonic dinoflagellate assemblage (e.g., Montresor et al, 1998;Godhe et al, 2001;Balkis et al, 2016). Cyst production generally shows a marked seasonality, both in terms of total fluxes and species assemblages, with production peaks often related to the increase of water temperature (Shin et al, 2012).…”