Phytoplankton Pigment Monitoring on Canada's Pacific Coast

Fisheries and Oceans Canada's monitoring program collects annual phytoplankton pigment and ancillary data from multiple locations in the northeast subarctic Pacific and the west coast of Canada. Water samples are analyzed by high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) to track changes in phytoplankton abundance and community composition.

Use Cases

• Analyze trends in phytoplankton pigment concentrations across multiple annual sampling locations to assess ecosystem productivity.
• Model relationships between ancillary data and specific pigment types to understand community composition shifts.
• Correlate pigment data with environmental factors to study impacts on marine food webs and biogeochemical cycles.

Strengths

• Data is collected by a national government agency (Fisheries and Oceans Canada), ensuring authoritative collection methods.
• Samples are analyzed using high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC), a standardized analytical technique.
• Monitoring covers multiple geographic locations in the northeast subarctic Pacific and Canada's west coast.

Limitations

• The dataset's row count, column structure, and specific variables are unknown from the provided description.
• Data is presented in HTML format, which is not ideal for direct quantitative analysis and may require parsing.
• The temporal coverage and specific update frequency are not detailed.

Provenance

Source

Fisheries and Oceans Canada

Collection Method

Water samples collected at discrete depths on annual DFO cruises and analyzed by high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC).

Time Range

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Freshness

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Geography

Multiple locations in the northeast subarctic Pacific and the west coast of Canada.