FOUNDATIONS FOR ECOLOGICAL RESEARCH WEST OF THE ANTARCTIC PENINSULA ANTARCTIC RESEARCH SERIES. VOLUME 70. PAGES 333-356 PHYTOPLANKTON BIOMASS AND PRODUCTIVITY IN THE WESTERN ANTARCTIC PENINSULA REGION

The Pahner Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) area, the area west of the Antarctic Peninsula, is an important oompmml r:l the Antarctic marine CCOIystem which iJ composed of • coastal and continental shelf ZOOt (CCSZ) annually IWept by the marginal ice zooe (MIZ). This couul canponent of the Antarctic marine ecocy.tem i. influenced by meltwater from glacien and iceberg., inclusive d areas providing some prOl.ectioo from wind and storms, potentially enriched by eu ential micronutrienu from land, supportive of massive blooms that do, in fact. reduce m.crcnutrientJ and supportive of relatively high levelJ of primary productivity. We pre-sent an overview of the temporal and spatial variability in phytOplankton biomass and primary produaivily for the LTER area based 00 &hip and satellite dill colleaed in this region and summarize factors controlling pri-mary productivity. H historical data are rqm:sentative, considering the complex It-ce/time variability of the an:.a, then the average primary productivity of thil region is of the order of a few hundred ge m·2 y.1 which, while about a factO!' " of S lower, is roughly ccmparable to other productive coastalan:.al of the world's oceans.