Resumo

SENGA, Yasuhiro  e  HORIUCHI, Tomohiro. PICO-PHYTOPLANKTON DISTRIBUTION IN WESTERN PACIFIC OCEAN ESTIMATED FROM OCEAN COLOR AND SST. Gayana (Concepc.) [online]. 2004, vol.68, n.2, suppl., pp. 520-524. ISSN 0717-6538.  doi: 10.4067/S0717-65382004000300037.

To investigate the spatial distribution of pico-phytoplankton in surface water, photosynthetic pigments were analyzed by a high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) for three cruises in the western Pacific Ocean carried out on 2000, 2001 and 2002. Analyzed chlorophyll-a showed peaks at the equatorial region and near Japan. In contrast, zeaxanthin, a specific pigment of pico-phytoplankton such as Synechococcus and Prochlorococcus showed a broad peak around equatorial region. From these results, we found inverse relationship between the ratio of zeaxanthin to chlorophyll-a concentration (ZCR) and chlorophyll-a concentration, and also positive relationship between ZCR and sea surface temperature (SST). And we derived a multiple regression equation to estimate ZCR from chlorophyll-a concentration and SST. The equation was applied to estimate spatial distribution of ZCR in the Pacific Ocean using satellite chlorophyll-a images and SST images