Chasing the Holy Grail – representative marine plankton sample – myth or truth?

Dr. sc. Zrinka Ljubešić

Sampling campaigns at seas are demanding due to unpredictable weather conditions, limits of research vessels and equipment, and the specificity of the processes being investigated. Also, oceans cover about 70 % of the Earth’s surface, bringing a new issue of the size of investigated environment. It is of essential importance to integrate multidisciplinary approaches and the use of different methods in order to meet comprehensive approach to ecosystem services assessment and an understanding of the overall ecosystem picture.

Spatial and temporal distributions of phytoplankton is defined with strong patchiness and their abundance reflect their dependence on nutrient availability, temperature ranges, light levels and water circulation. When it comes to phytoplankton, it is not just the quantity, but also the quality that matters. So, we are facing a challenge of getting a representative sample of particles that are passively driven by currents and changing all the time. How can we get the insight of the abundance of some particles that are unevenly dispersed in an ocean? Can we talk about a representative sample at all?

A success study of adaptive sampling strategy will be presented, where, for the purpose of the ISLAND project, excellent meteo-oceanographic forecasts based on high-resolution models were provided daily to the researchers on the field. Such an interdisciplinary approach, where physicists optimized the sampling and measurement of chemical and biological parameters, was implemented for the first time in the Adriatic Sea.

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