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Nutrient limitation of phytoplankton in solar salt ponds in Shark Bay, Western Australia

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Abstract

The aim of this research was to examine nutrient limitation of phytoplankton in solar salt ponds of varying salinity at Useless Inlet in Western Australia. These ponds use solar energy to evaporate seawater for the purpose of commercial salt production. A combination of techniques involving water column nutrient ratios, comparisons of nutrient concentrations to concentration of magnesium ions and bioassays were used in the investigation. Comparisons of changes in dissolved inorganic nitrogen to phosphorus ratios and concentrations of dissolved inorganic nutrients against changes in concentrations of the conservative cation Mg2+ indicated that phytoplankton biomass was potentially nitrogen limited along the entire pond salinity gradient. Nutrient addition bioassays indicated that in low salinity ponds, phytoplankton was nitrogen limited but in high salinity ponds, phosphorus limited. This may be due to isolation of phytoplankton in bioassay bottles from in situ conditions as well as to changes in phytoplankton species composition between ponds, and the variable availability of inorganic and organic nutrient sources. The differences in limiting nutrient between methods indicate that phytoplankton cells may be proximally limited by nutrients that are not theoretically limiting at the pond scale. Dissolved organic nutrients constituted a large proportion of total nutrients, with concentrations increasing through the pond sequence of increasing salinity. From the change in nutrient concentrations in bioassay bottles, sufficient dissolved organic nitrogen may be available for phytoplankton uptake in low salinity ponds, potentially alleviating the dissolved inorganic nitrogen limitation of phytoplankton biomass.

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Acknowledgements

This work was funded by Shark Bay Resources. RDS was supported financially by an Australian Postgraduate Award-Industry scholarship under the Australian Research Council’s Strategic Partnerships with Industry-Research and Training Scheme (No. C00107505). We thank the staff at Shark Bay Salt Joint Venture, Useless Loop, for accommodation and on-site assistance, and the Marine and Freshwater Research Laboratory, Murdoch University, for nutrient analyses. This article is CWR Research Paper ED 1923.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Centre for Water Research, University of Western Australia, Perth, WA, 6009, Australia

    Richard D. Segal & Anya M. Waite

  2. Centre for Biodiversity and Ecology Research, University of Waikato, Hamilton, New Zealand

    David P. Hamilton

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  1. Richard D. Segal
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  2. Anya M. Waite
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  3. David P. Hamilton
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Correspondence to David P. Hamilton.

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Guest Editors: J. John & B. Timms

Salt Lake Research: Biodiversity and Conservation—Selected Papers from the 9th Conference of the International Society for Salt Lake Research

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Segal, R.D., Waite, A.M. & Hamilton, D.P. Nutrient limitation of phytoplankton in solar salt ponds in Shark Bay, Western Australia. Hydrobiologia 626, 97–109 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10750-009-9739-3

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