Open Access
Subscription or Fee Access
Predictive Capability of Three Empirical Models in Estimating the Chlorophyll: A Comparative Case Study of Ecosystem
Harini Santhanam, Amal Raj, S. Thanasekaran
Abstract
The primary productivity of a coastal lagoon can be inferred from the data on the concentration of the primary photosynthetic pigment, chlorophyll-a in phytoplankton. Being the essential macronutrient limiting the growth of phytoplankton, the concentration of primary nutrients such as phosphorus and nitrate in their dissolved states can be related to the concentration of chlorophyll-a in the water. Thus it is possible to determine the trophic status of a lagoon through predicted values of chlorophyll-a obtained by using the empirical relationship between the phytopigment and its limiting nutrient. In the present study, three empirical models developed by Dillon and Rigler (1974), Rast and Lee (1978) and Bartsch and Gakstatter (1978) relating the concentrations to inorganic phosphate to chlorophyll-a have been investigated for their capability to predict the concentrations of the phytopigment at Pulicat lagoon in the Southeast coast of India. The results obtained from the study have been used to describe the trophic status of a coastal lagoon in the southeast coast of India, namely, Pulicat lagoon ecosystem. The results obtained suggest that there are large discrepancies in the values obtained from these models and those obtained from analysis of the samples. From the present study model performance is influenced by the non-linear relationships between the nutrient concentration and the production of phytopigment, chlorophyll-a varying over different seasons and years.
Keywords
Chlorophyll-a, Empirical models, Inorganic phosphate, Pulicat lagoon, Coastal lagoons
Full Text:
PDF
Disclaimer/Regarding indexing issue:
We have provided the online access of all issues and papers to the indexing agencies (as given on journal web site). It’s depend on indexing agencies when, how and what manner they can index or not. Hence, we like to inform that on the basis of earlier indexing, we can’t predict the today or future indexing policy of third party (i.e. indexing agencies) as they have right to discontinue any journal at any time without prior information to the journal. So, please neither sends any question nor expects any answer from us on the behalf of third party i.e. indexing agencies.Hence, we will not issue any certificate or letter for indexing issue. Our role is just to provide the online access to them. So we do properly this and one can visit indexing agencies website to get the authentic information. Also: DOI is paid service which provided by a third party. We never mentioned that we go for this for our any journal. However, journal have no objection if author go directly for this paid DOI service.
