Submitted by Anonymous on Tue, 05/08/2007 - 08:07
Forums
Ask Ms. Prevenas

Hi dear BEST team,

We have ben learning about plankton and the food chain. Our question is what the prdominat species of Pytoplankton and Zooplankton are in the Bering Sea. We will be going on a ship on the Hodson and learn about the local plankton soon.

Greeting and a qestion for Ray: what are the changes in productivity during the alst 10 years. Any trends and why?Wink

Elke Bergholz and her 11th grades at UNIS, New York

Wed, 05/09/2007 - 08:38

Maggie Prevenas

Hallo Elke! 
Your question was warmly received in the science lab.
 
There have been many species of phytoplankton found in the water of the Bering Sea. In talking with Dr. Ray Sambrotto, he suggested to look at the distribution as ice algae found under the ice and ice algae found at the ice edge.
 
There are lots of different diatoms in both of those areas especially the pennates. Ones that have been observed under the ice include Navicula and Fragilari opsis. Those found at the ice edge in the bloom include Melosira arctica and Thallasseus sira
 
As far as the zooplankton, lets make the same two distictions, those found under the ice and those found at the ice edge. Dr. Ray, and others (including Dr. David Shull) tell me that copepods lead the way with the Euphausids being quite dominant. Dr. Shull told me that he has found arrow worms in great abundance as well.
 
I WILL e-mail Dr. Jeff Napp, who was the head of the invertebrate team on the ship, to find out more for you. Dr. Napp left the boat in the Pribilofs, but we still stay in contact.
 
Thanks for your interesst. Perhaps you will do a little collection and identification of Antarctic phytoplankton and zooplankton in your soujourn to Antarctica later on this year? Wonder if the same species dominate the water column there?
 
warmly,
 
Maggie
 
 
From Dr. Ray Sambrotto:
 
There are many species of phytoplankton and zooplankton in the Bering  
Sea.  The species found there vary from place to place and also change throughout the year.  
 
In general, the most productive time for the plankton in the Bering Sea is the spring when the water can turn green from all of the phytoplankton.  
 
To think about the different species, it is useful to think about the different environments that they  are found.  In the Bering Sea during the spring, the important environments are the ice pack, the ice edge and the open water.  In  
each of these environments, the phytoplankton called diatoms are important.  In the ice pack there are diatoms growing on the underside of the ice.  The ice algae we saw included Navicula and Fragilariopsis.  At the ice-edge there are dense blooms of diatoms.  Here we found Thallasiosira and Chaetoceros.  In open water after the ice melts, there can be many other kinds of phytoplankton as well.  These include other diatoms as well as coccolithophores.