Typhoon effects on phytoplankton responses in subtropical freshwater ecosystem  Through decadal field observations of phytoplankton biomass, production and growth rate in 36 typhoon cases, we found that phytoplankton exposed to typhoon disturbances generally exhibited an increasing trend over the weeks before, during and after typhoons in summer but varied in autumn. The correlations and multivariate regressions showed different contributions of meteorological and hydrological variables to individual phytoplankton responses before, during and after typhoons between seasons. The post-typhoon weeks were especially important for the timeline of phytoplankton increases and with a detectable seasonal variation that the chlorophyll a concentration significantly increased in autumn whereas both primary production and growth rate were associated with significant changes in summer. Additionally, phytoplankton responses during the post-typhoon weeks were significantly different between discrete or continuous types of typhoon events.

Biogenic C cycling in the South China Sea shelf  Based on two summer spatio-temporal data sets obtained from the northern South China Sea shelf and basin, our study reveals contrasting relationships among bacterial production (BP), dissolved organic (DOC) and primary production (PP) in the transition zone from the neritic to the oceanic regions. Inside the mid-shelf (bottom depth <100 m), where inorganic nutrient supplies from river discharge and internal waves were potentially abundant, BP, DOC and PP were positively intercorrelated, whereas these three measurements became uncorrelated in the oligotrophic outer shelf and slope. We suggest that the availability of limiting minerals could affect the couplings/decouplings between the source (i.e. phytoplankton) and sink (i.e. bacteria) of organic carbon, and thus DOC dynamics. DOC turnover times were homogeneously low (37–60 days) inside the mid-shelf area and then increased significantly to values >100 days in the outer shelf, indicating that riverine (Pearl River) DOC might be more labile.