If the input rate of SiO3-Si is lower than the export rate, SiO3-Si will eventually be depleted by diatom uptake. It is clear from Figure 4a that the SiO3-Si concentration in the northern part of the cold eddy was so low that it could not markedly indicate the upwelling. The SiO3-Si at the centres of the upwellings in the TSLS and in the west of the PIS was not depleted by diatoms. This confirmed that the upwelling in the TSLS and the upwelling in the west of the PIS were stronger than that in the northern part of the cold eddy, with the one in find more the TSLS being the strongest. With the aid of multivariate statistical analysis and remote sensing techniques, we successfully demonstrated

that silicate is a useful indicator of the formation and distribution of upwelling events in the northern part of the SCS, especially for the analysis and interpretation of complex data from large areas, such as for marine environmental and ecological research (Wang et al. 2006, Chau & Muttil 2007, Suikkanen et al. 2007, Wu & Wang 2007, Wu et al. 2009a,b). Although the complex datasets used here consist of 32 × 14 observations in a large area (18°–23°N, 111°–120°E), the CA clearly distinguished the spatial similarity reflecting different levels of nutrient concentration

(low and high nutrient), and the PCA was successful in picking out silicate as an indicator for studying upwelling. The spatial distribution E7080 in vivo of silicate clearly showed three upwelling regions that can be verified by satellite observations of sea surface temperature. “
“The physiology of all organisms is affected by temperature; this parameter is therefore used as a steering function in ecological models.In the case of ciliates it was demonstrated that temperature accelerates both ciliate growth (Müller & Geller 1993, Montagnes et al. 2003) and feeding rates (Dolan & Coates 1991), modifying energy flow through

a ciliate community. The aim of this study was to assess the dependence between the clearance rate of the common marine ciliate Balanion comatum Wulff 1919 and ambient temperature. B. comatum, redescribed by Jakobsen & Montagnes (1999), is a cosmopolitan marine ciliate. Decitabine in vivo Common both in coastal and offshore waters, also in the brackish Baltic Sea ( Witek 1998, Setälä & Kivi 2003), it grazes on nanoflagellates ( Jakobsen & Hansen 1997, Rychert 2008). Experiments were conducted under natural conditions with wheat starch added to water and used as a surrogate of food particles. Starch particles were observed inside ciliates after staining with Lugol’s solution. The volume of water cleared of starch particles (clearance rate, μl cell−1 h−1) was plotted against environmental temperature to check the statistical significance of the regression. The Q10 coefficient is most convenient for ecological modelling (e.g. Brush et al.