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¹ Recep Tayyip Erdogan University, Faculty of Fisheries, Dept. of Marine Biology, Rize, Turkey
² Karadeniz Technical University, Faculty of Marine Science, Dept. of Fisheries Tech., Camburnu, Trabzon, Turkey DOI : 10.4194/1303-2712-v14_3_14 Viewed : 4757 - Downloaded : 5857 We describe spatio-temporal variability of primary production (PP) and chlorophyll-a (Chl-a) concentration with environmental parameters during March-December 2010 period in the south-eastern coast of the Black Sea. PP was measured by a combination of 14C in-situ incubation experiments on natural phytoplankton assemblages. Primary production rates, varied notably within water column with 0.1-40 mg cm-3 d-1, were always determined in the upper part of the euphotic zone down to the 10% of light intensity depth. The depth-integrated production rates ranged from 285 to 565 mg cm-2 d-1 for the coastal station and from 126 to 530 mg cm-2 d-1 for the offshore station (ANOVA, P>0.05). The average Chl-a concentrations within the euphotic zone ranged from 0.30 to 3.57 μg L-1 for the coastal station and from 0.25 to 3.45 μg L-1 for the offshore station (ANOVA, P<0.01), whereas the levels of depth-integrated Chl-a concentrations in the offshore station (9-80 mg m-2) were greater than in the coastal station (10 to 68 mg m-2) (ANOVA, P>0.05). The correlation between integrated PP and Chl-a values for the coastal station (r2= 0.98; P<0.01) was better than for the offshore station (r2= 0.12; P>0.05). Keywords : Black Sea, primary production, chlorophyll-a, phytoplankton, euphotic zone