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JPR Advance Access published online on March 30, 2004
Journal of Plankton Research, doi:10.1093/plankt/fbh045
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Received October 14, 2003;
accepted January 29, 2004

Article

Noctiluca scintillans MACARTNEY in the Northern Adriatic Sea: long term dynamics, relationships with temperature and eutrophication, and role in the food web

S. Fonda Umani 1*, A. Beran 2, S. Parlato 2, D. Virgilio 2, T. Zollet 2, A. De Olazabal 2, B. Lazzarini 2, and M. Cabrini 2

1 Laboratory of Marine Biology, via Piccard 54, 34010 Trieste S. Croce, Italy; Department of Biology, University of Trieste, via Giorgeri 10, 34127 Trieste, Italy
2 Laboratory of Marine Biology, via Piccard 54, 34010 Trieste S. Croce, Italy

* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: labbioma{at}units.it.


  Abstract

The first ‘bloom’ of Noctiluca scintillans in the Northern Adriatic Sea was recorded in 1977. The organism caused several red tides in the whole basin during the late 1970s, a period characterized by increasing nutrient loads. During the 1980s and early 1990s, there was no "red tide", but the species was an almost constant summer presence, associated with high temperatures. N. scintillans was almost completely absent from 1994 until May 1997, concurrent with a general plankton decrease. From summer 1997 N. scintillans was recorded again in the whole basin, although there was no other signal of increasing eutrophication. In contrast to all previous observations, during winter 2002-2003, N. scintillans was continuously sampled in the Gulf of Trieste. We experimentally estimated growth and grazing rates of the dinoflagellate at 9-10 °C in culture and consuming the natural assemblage. N. scintillans was able to reproduce actively at low temperatures showing similar growth rates in both experiments (k = 0.2 d-1). The values found were close to those reported in literature for higher temperatures. The natural diet was mainly composed of phytoplankton (Ingestion = 0.008 µg C Noctiluca-1 d-1), microzooplankton (I = 0.008 µg C Noctiluca-1 d-1), and bacteria (I = 0.005 µg C Noctiluca-1 d-1) with an average C-content of 0.138 ±0.020 µg C Noctiluca cell-1.


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