Abstract
The potential importance of nutrients, especially nitrogen, phosphorus, and silica, in influencing the productivity of the sea has been recognized for over 80 years (Brandt, 1899), though this long awareness has not necessarily produced a thorough understanding. Analytical techniques capable of resolving the concentrations of nutrients usually found in marine waters did not become available until the 1920s and 1930s (for example, Denigés, 1921; Harvey, 1928; Atkins, 1932). Ammonia, the most active form of nitrogen, was not commonly measured until after the publication of Solorzano’s direct colormetric technique in 1969. An early enthusiasm for describing, and in some cases quantifying the often dramatic reciprocal seasonal cycles in the concentrations of nutrients and the standing crop of phytoplankton waned as the patterns became better known (for example, Atkins, 1930; Cooper, 1933). It was also perceived early on that rapid nutrient cycles and transformations were probably taking place at rates which could not then be measured. As a result, there was little real advance in the study of nutrients in marine systems for some 25–30 years following the pioneering descriptive work of the 1930s.
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Nixon, S.W. et al. (1984). Eutrophication of a Coastal Marine Ecosystem — An Experimental Study Using the Merl Microcosms. In: Fasham, M.J.R. (eds) Flows of Energy and Materials in Marine Ecosystems. NATO Conference Series, vol 13. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4757-0387-0_5
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