Data from: Physiological and ecological drivers of early spring blooms of a coastal phytoplankter

Climate affects the timing and magnitude of phytoplankton blooms that fuel marine food webs and influence global biogeochemical cycles. Changes in bloom timing have been detected in some cases, but the underlying mechanisms remain elusive, contributing to uncertainty in long-term predictions of climate change impacts. Here we describe a 13-year hourly time series from the New England shelf of data on the coastal phytoplankter Synechococcus, during which the timing of its spring bloom varied by 4 weeks. We show that multiyear trends are due to temperature-induced changes in cell division rate, with earlier blooms driven by warmer spring water temperatures. Synechococcus loss rates shift in tandem with division rates, suggesting a balance between growth and loss that has persisted despite phenological shifts and environmental change.

气候影响浮游植物水华（phytoplankton blooms）的发生时间与规模，这类水华为海洋食物网提供能量支撑，并对全球生物地球化学循环产生重要影响。已有研究在部分案例中观测到藻华发生时间的变化，但背后的调控机制仍尚不明确，这进一步加剧了气候变化影响长期预测的不确定性。本研究描述了一段来自新英格兰陆架（New England shelf）的13年逐小时时间序列数据集，观测对象为近岸浮游植物聚球藻（Synechococcus），在此期间其春季藻华的发生时间波动幅度达4周。研究表明，多年间的变化趋势由温度诱导的细胞分裂速率变化所驱动：春季水温升高会促使藻华提前发生。聚球藻的损失速率与分裂速率同步变化，这表明尽管经历了物候转变与环境改变，其生长与损失之间的动态平衡仍得以维持。