Phytoplankton spring bloom of the Gironde plume waters in the Bay of Biscay: early phosphorus limitation and food-web consequences

During the spring 1995 (2-25 May), a cruise was carried on the RV Poseidon (Germany) on the continental shelf of the south Bay of Biscay. The objective was a comprehensive study of the planktonic food web within the Gironde plume waters. In these waters phosphate was present at very low concentrations (undetectable to < 0.1 mu mol.L-1), whereas nitrate, silicate and ammonium concentrations were much higher (several mu mol.L-1 for nitrate and silicate and 0.5 to 1.0 mu mol.L-1 for ammonium). The size distribution of the phytoplankton biomass (estimated from chlorophyll a measurements by high performance liquid chromatography) and primary production (measured by C-14 in situ method) showed a great proportion of small (40 to 70 % < 3 mu m) and active autotrophic cells (growth rates estimated from 0.4 to 0.8 d(-1) for the entire euphotic layer). Considering the very high values of NO3-N:PO4-P ratios and the high C:P and N:P ratios for the particulate organic matter, it is suggested that an early phosphorus depletion limits the spring bloom phytoplankton and particularly the new production (nitrate uptake coming from the Gironde waters). From these results and other simultaneous observations on the heterotrophic processes (such as grazing of microzooplankton), we can conclude that the planktonic food web would be close to a maintenance system as defined by Platt et al. The possible generalisation of these results for each spring is discussed with respect to the scarcity of previous and reliable phosphate data.