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JPR Advance Access published online on December 4, 2006
Journal of Plankton Research, doi:10.1093/plankt/fbl061
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© The Author 2006. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org

Horizons

Using primary productivity as an index of coastal eutrophication: the units of measurement matter

Val H. Smith1,*

1 Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS 66045 USA

* CORRESPONDING AUTHOR: vsmith{at}ku.edu

Received on August 24, 2006; revised on September 28, 2006; accepted on October 24, 2006
  Abstract

Eutrophication is a serious environmental and economic problem in coastal marine ecosystems worldwide. It has recently been recommended that measurements of primary productivity, being a sensitive and accurate indicator of eutrophication, should be mandatory when monitoring and assessing the ecological status of coastal waters. The units of primary productivity chosen for eutrophication assessment will be very important because not all measures of primary productivity vary monotonically (or even straightforwardly) with changes in aquatic fertility. Volumetric expressions of primary productivity (rates of carbon fixation per unit volume of seawater) may prove to be the most sensitive and most reliable measures to use when evaluating the eutrophication status of coastal marine ecosystems. Another potential measure of primary productivity, the light-saturated rate of photosynthesis per unit Chlorophyll a (P:BChl) ratio, is unsuitable for the assessment of aquatic ecosystem responses to nutrient enrichment.

Key Words: eutrophication • photosynthesis • primary productivity


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