Adapting the light · biomass (BZI) models of phytoplankton primary production to shallow marine ecosystems

Several authors have reported a strong linear relationship between daily phytoplankton production and the product of chlorophyll biomass, photic depth, and incident irradiance for a variety of estuaries. This “light · biomass” (BZpIo) formulation has been proposed as an alternative to traditional mechanistic approaches for computing phytoplankton production in numerical estuarine models. One limitation to their application in shallow systems is that the BZpIo models have been developed in relatively deep estuaries where light does not reach the bottom. We propose a nonlinear correction factor to adapt the BZpIo relationship to shallow systems where light does reach the bottom. Our function takes into account variations in incident irradiance, attenuation coefficient for light, photosynthetic efficiency, and maximum rate of photosynthesis. A series of correction polynomials are proposed for various ranges of incident irradiance, and are integrated into a single multiple polynomial which applies across all irradiance levels. Our new correction factor was tested against a 14C-based productivity dataset from shallow stations in Narragansett Bay, RI and an O2-based dataset from shallow (1.1 m) lagoon mesocosms at the University of Rhode Island. Results showed that our polynomials accurately correct BZpIo-predicted rates of production in shallow water columns. Application of our correction factor to a series of shallow water productivity datasets from the literature together with theoretical calculations show how significant the shallow water correction can be, especially in very shallow water columns with low turbidity.