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Phytoplankton optical fingerprint libraries for development of phytoplankton ocean color satellite products - PubMed

️Mon Jan 01 2024

Phytoplankton optical fingerprint libraries for development of phytoplankton ocean color satellite products

Michael W Lomas et al. Sci Data. 2024.

Abstract

Phytoplankton respond to physical and hydrographic forcing on time and space scales up to and including those relevant to climate change. Quantifying changes in phytoplankton communities over these scales is essential for predicting ocean food resources, occurrences of harmful algal blooms, and carbon and other elemental cycles, among other predictions. However, one of the best tools for quantifying phytoplankton communities across relevant time and space scales, ocean color sensors, is constrained by its own spectral capabilities and availability of adequately vetted and relevant optical models. To address this later shortcoming, greater than fifty strains of phytoplankton, from a range of taxonomic lineages, geographic locations, and time in culture, alone and in mixtures, were grown to exponential and/or stationary phase for determination of hyperspectral UV-VIS absorption coefficients, multi-angle and multi-spectral backscatter coefficients, volume scattering functions, particle size distributions, pigment content, and fluorescence. The aim of this publication is to share these measurements to expedite their utilization in the development of new optical models for the next generation of ocean color satellites.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no competing financial interests. The views expressed are purely those of the writers and may not under any circumstances be regarded as stating an official position of NASA or any other institution.

Figures

**Fig. 1**
Schematic of in-line sampling apparatus for inherent optical properties of phytoplankton cultures.

**Fig. 2**
Comparison of particle absorption (a_p) spectra derived from different instruments. Spectra were collected using a spectrophotometer (blue line) and an AC-S (red line) for a) mixed culture of *Prasinococcus capsulata* and *Chaetoceros muelleri* and b) unialgal culture of *Tetraselmis* sp.. Circled locations emphasize absorption peaks that are not resolved with the AC-S due to lower spectral resolution.

**Fig. 3**
Box-whisker plots of pigment ratios normalized to Chla for different taxonomic groupings. (a) dinoflagellates (b) diatoms and (c) *E. huxleyi*. Literature data are presented as the box-whisker plot and are overlain with the ratios determined in this study (scatter plots).

**Fig. 4**
Backscatter ratio box-whisker plots for species examined in this study grouped by broad functional type.

**Fig. 5**
Phytoplankton absorption, a_ph(λ) normalized to a_ph(440), of cyanobacterial species measured in this study. ExpP = Exponential phase. StatP = Stationary phase. CC = Climate change. HS = HyperSAS.

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Phytoplankton optical fingerprint libraries for development of phytoplankton ocean color satellite products - PubMed