Co-Supervisors: Tom Andersen and Simon Hassel? Kline
This master’s project will be integrated into the cross-disciplinary “Coastal Ecosystems under anthropogenic pressures” research project.
Phytoplankton are primary producers and the basis of most food webs in the ocean. Changes within the phytoplankton community are likely to have effects throughout the remaining food web and ecosystem, which in turn may affect the overall resilience of marine ecosystems to changing conditions.
The phytoplankton composition and abundance vary strongly through the year. The yearly spring bloom is a dominant feature of the population growth pattern of phytoplankton in temperate waters and is an event that has triggering effects throughout the remaining food web and ecosystem. The timing of the early phytoplankton spring bloom is usually initiated through increased light availability or increased stratification of the water column, as nutrient as a rule is not limiting for growth after the winter-mixing of the water column.
Lunds?r et al. (2022) found that since 2013 the phytoplankton spring bloom in the Inner Oslofjord has shifted from two peaks during spring (first main peak in February-March and a second, smaller peak in May-June) to two equally large peaks that occur in March-May. Skeletonema and Chaetoceros are among the dominating diatom genera during the spring bloom in the Oslofjord, and the observed shift in the delay of the spring bloom was proposed to be largely driven by the reduction of Skeletonema biomass in Inner Oslofjorden (Lunds?r et al., 2022). Additionally, they have shown that the relative abundanc