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JOURNAL OF PLANKTON RESEARCH | VOLUME 2 | NUMBER 2 | PAGES 169-181 | 1980
© Oxford University Press

research-article

Factors affecting phytoplankton production over the Campbell Plateau, New Zealand

R.A. Heath and J.M. Bradford

New Zealand Oceanographic Institute, Department of Scientific and Industrial Research P.O. Box 12-346, Wellington, N.Z.

Received on December 1, 1979; accepted on February 1, 1980 The Campbell Plateau, which covers approximately 600,000 km2 at depths ranging from 0–500 m on the rises to 1500 m at the plateau edge, possibly encompasses a unique combination of bathymetric and hydrological features.

Nutrients are in good supply and do not limit primary production. Over areas deeper than 450 m chlorophyll a concentrations are generally low but are greater where the stability of the surface waters is greater. Chlorophyll a reaches maximum concentrations in areas shallower than 500 m (e.g., Pukaki Rise and Bounty Plateau).

Water over the Campbell Plateau generally has low stability, the result presumably of bathymetrically induced mixing and the turbulent meteorological regime. Phytoplankton-poor water is apparently introduced into this area where water column stability is insufficient to support rapid phytoplankton growth. Shallow bathymetric features appear to confine the phytoplankton near the surface and enhance phytoplankton production.

It is postulated that current speed and direction is responsible for the skewness of the relationship between bottom depth and the distribution of chlorophyll a and differences between each bathymetric feature.


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