Abstract
Within the framework of a general study on time variability in the St. Lawrence Estuary, phytoplankton was sampled at 10-min intervals for 13 h. A symmetric, cosine, tapered filter was applied to the time series of cell counts, the cyclical trend being interpreted in relation to physical variables. Autocorrelation coefficients were computed for residual phytoplankton data, in order to investigate fine-scale effects in the series. The main pattern (trend) of variation in the phytoplankton data had a frequency of about 1 cycle/190 min and was related to physical variations, following therefore the tidal movement of water masses in the estuary. On the other hand, the correlogram suggests that phytoplankton is aggregated in patches of an average diameter of about 0.75 km.
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Communicated by T.R. Parsons, Vancouver
Contribution au programme du Groupe interuniversitaire de recherches océanographiques du Québec (GIROQ).
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Fortier, L., Legendre, L., Cardinal, A. et al. Variabilité à court terme du phytoplancton de l'estuaire du Saint-Laurent. Mar. Biol. 46, 349–354 (1978). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00391407
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00391407