Towards an ecological status report for phytoplankton and microbialplankton in the North Atlantic

No abstracts are to be cited without prior reference to the author.

The ecological links between the physical environment of the ocean and the mid to upper trophic levels of pelagic foodwebs are the lower trophic levels comprising microbial primary producers (phytoplankton) and microbial secondary producers (bacterioplankton, heterotrophic protists). In the North Atlantic Ocean, standardized annual average anomalies of oceanic hydrography (WGOH) and of mesozooplankton (WGZE) derived from time‐series observations at monitoring sites located across the entire basin provide long‐term trends suitable for discerning climate variability and change. Here we (Working Group on Phytoplankton and Microbial Ecology, WGPME) describe work in progress aimed at establishing contemporaneous trends at similar scales of space and time for phytoplankton and other microbial plankton (and associated variables such as inorganic nutrients) with a view towards understanding climatic and anthropogenic signal propagation from the abiotic environment to higher trophic levels.