| This study was supported by the Atlantic working site of the « Programme National d’Océanographie Côtière » (PNOC, PNEC since 1999). The objectives were (1) to check the existence and to understand the mechanisms of winter phytoplankton blooms in the bay of Biscay influenced by the Gironde waters (2) to determine the limiting nutrient of the primary production associated to these blooms and to follow the seasonal evolution of the limiting nutrient, (3) to understand the consequences of this early limitation on the structuration of algal populations in spring. Since phosphorus was supposed to be the major limiting nutrient of algal growth in the Gironde plume, the different forms of the phosphorus cycle as well as the bacterial compartment, central in this... |
