Resumen de Spectral signature of phytoplankton in the southwest coast of Portugal: impact on remote sensing data
Priscila Raquel Fernandes Costa Goela
Phytoplankton communities are of major importance in the aquatic environment for their role in primary production and water quality, both for the Oxygen cycle and algal toxins. Innovative techniques of phytoplankton monitoring include ocean colour remote sensing, and chemotaxonomy. This thesis is a study of the spectral features of phytoplankton absorption and the relationship with the phytoplankton communities in the Southwestern coast of Portugal (Sagres). It is a contribution to adjust and develop existent and new ocean colour remote sensing algorithms, having in account the local upwelling regimes and seasonality.
The work is organized in four chapters, and the main findings are presented on the form of scientific articles, submitted peer-review journals. Introductory aspects such as scientific context, main hypothesis, objectives, and research questions are described in Chapter 1. Chapter 2 and 3 are the core chapters of the thesis, addressing the fundamental aspects of the phytoplankton absorption properties in the study area, its application in the development of regionalized algorithms for the retrieval of chlorophyll a concentration (the main proxy of phytoplankton), and the chemotaxonomic characterization of the phytoplankton communities in the area, using a “locally adapted” definition of seasons based on upwelling regimes. Chapter 4 presents the overall conclusions of the study and main applications of the study to the marine and coastal management field. This thesis gives a valuable input to both the scientific and marine management communities, through the improvement and development of tools to monitor phytoplankton in a synoptic and cost-effective way.
