Table of Contents

• Coverage
• Dataset Description
  • Methods & Sampling
  • Data Processing Description
• Data Files
• Related Publications
• Parameters
• Deployments
• Project Information
• Funding

Growth rates of dominant plankton across 3 temperature treatments.

Sampling and analytical procedures: For microscopy analysis of species composition and biomass via size, 100 mL of WSW from both initial and final samples were preserved with 2% acid Lugol’s iodine (final concentration; Menden-Deuer, Lessard & Satterberg, 2001). Counts of dominant phytoplankton >5 μm in diameter were made with a 1 mL Sedgwick-Rafter slide, a minimum of 300 cells per sample were counted. Less abundant species, and herbivorous protists were counted in 50 mL Lugol’s fixed samples settled following the Utermöhl method. The entire surface of the chamber was scanned under an inverted microscope at 100–200x to ensure adequate sample size. However when low cell numbers were encountered, multiple species were binned to increase the confidence of the rate estimate. Taxonomic identification was based on morphological characteristics (Dodge, 1985; Tomas, 1997; Lee, Leedale & Bradbury, 2000; Horner, 2002).  Microscope counts were made for samples from experiments conducted between April 23rd and May 7th. No counts were made for experiments on April 20th, or May 7th and 11th. 
Species-specific growth rates for phytoplankton and herbivorous protists were calculated as the ratio of natural log transformed cell abundances over time: µ = 1/t * ln(Nt/N0), with Nt and N0 being the final and initial specie-specific abundance respectively and t the time elapsed in days.

BCO-DMO Processing Notes:
- added conventional header with dataset name, PI name, version date
- modified parameter names to conform with BCO-DMO naming conventions
- appended latitude, longitude coordinates to the data.

NSF Award Abstract:
Plankton, single-celled organisms that inhabit the world's oceans are responsible for the generation of oxygen, cycling energy and matter between the atmosphere and the deep ocean and are the basis for virtually all seafood harvested. These life-giving functions critically depend on the relative rates at which plankton grow and get eaten. How temperature influences those rates is essential to understand plankton responses to environmental changes and ocean dynamics. It is well established that plankton grow faster when temperatures are higher however, whether feeding has a similar temperature dependence is unknown. That means oceanographers are missing key data required to build global predictive models. This project will fill essential knowledge gaps and measure physiological rates of singled celled zooplankton across temperature gradients representing the global ocean, from polar to tropical regions and throughout the seasonal cycle. Researchers will combine laboratory experiments with specimens taken from the coastal ocean (Narragansett Bay), which is exemplary in its strong seasonal temperature variations. These data will provide a clear picture of the production capacity and activity of plankton in a global and dynamic ocean. The project supports an early career scientist, as well as graduate and undergraduate students. Scientists will continue communicating their research to the public through large-scale outreach events, education at the high-school level, and engagement through online and other media. Moreover, researchers will continue collaborating with the Metcalf Institute for Marine & Environmental Reporting to support their Annual Science Immersion Workshop for Journalists and their ongoing work to disseminate research findings through web-based seminars.

Grazing is the single largest loss factor of marine primary production and thus affects a key transfer rate between global organic and inorganic matter pools. Remarkably, data for herbivorous protist growth and grazing rates at temperatures representative of the vast polar regions and during winter and spring periods are extremely sparse. By combining laboratory experiments with ground truthing fieldwork, this project alleviates a central knowledge gap in oceanography and delivers the empirical measurements necessary to derive algorithms to incorporate temperature dependence of heterotrophic protist growth and grazing rates into biogeochemical models. The extraordinary seasonal temperature fluctuations in a temperate coastal estuary (Narragansett Bay) are exploited to measure rates of heterotrophic protists isolated from different temperatures and seasons and to quantify the temperature and acclimation responses of these ecotypes. This project delivers data urgently needed to solve the conundrum of whether herbivorous growth and predation is depressed at low temperatures, implying low trophic transfer rates and high carbon export, or if predation proceeds at rates comparable to temperate systems with primary production largely lost to predation. Large temperature gradients in the global ocean mean that cross-biome and biogeochemical models are particularly sensitive to assumptions about the temperature dependence in modeled rate processes. Establishment of the dependence of heterotrophic plankton physiological rates (growth and grazing) to gradients of temperature, mimicking realistic conditions experienced by plankton in a changing ocean, is a key step towards integrating much needed biological information in biogeochemical modeling efforts. This project makes a significant contribution to linking ecological research with ecosystem models by providing empirically rooted algorithms of the temperature dependence of protistan herbivory and growth rates, key processes in the transformation of organic matter in global biogeochemical cycles and tools critically missing in ecosystem models.