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Coupling Of Autotrophic And Heterotrophic Plankton Food Web Components In The Tidal-Freshwater James River, Usa, Matthew Beckwith
Coupling Of Autotrophic And Heterotrophic Plankton Food Web Components In The Tidal-Freshwater James River, Usa, Matthew Beckwith
Theses and Dissertations
Empirical studies have shown that algal- and detrital-based food web components are coupled in many pelagic systems as algal carbon enhances bacterioplankton production and growth efficiencies. Such phyto-bacterioplankton coupling impacts carbon flow through plankton food webs, yet the extent of coupling is poorly understood in systems receiving large amounts of allochthonous carbon. To investigate this issue, bacterioplankton abundance (BA) and community composition were compared to chlorophyll a concentrations and phytoplankton production in the tidal-freshwater James River (VA). BA averaged 107 cells mL-1 and was significantly related to chlorophyll a, phytoplankton production, and DOC concentrations. Analysis of DOC quality using fluorescence …