Orbital remote sensing of phytoplankton functional types: a new review

Abstract

Phytoplankton functional types (PFTs) are groups of species that have specific roles in the biogeochemical cycles and trophic flow. These groups have been pointed out as keys to improve the knowledge on ecosystem dynamics and effects of climate and anthropogenic changes in the marine environment. Orbital remote sensing is stated as the only means capable of analysing spatio-temporal distribution of PFTs, over regional and global scales. Many research teams have focused their efforts on the development of PFT bio-optical models, presenting a great variety of approaches. Considerable advances have been achieved in a few years of research; however, challenges are still great. Further developments rely on improvements in the knowledge of PFTs' bio-optical characteristics and the possibility of integrating different bio-optical and ecological information. This article presents a new review of the state of the art of PFTs' characterization from space, with examples of the main models and a discussion of achievements, gaps and future perspectives.

Acknowledgements

We thank the Brazilian fellowship programme ‘Coordenação de Aperfeioamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior’ (CAPES) and the Brazilian National Institute of Space Research (INPE). We thank Dr Evlyn M.L.M. Novo and Dr João Antônio Lorenzzetti for their contributions to the discussions, Dr Aurea Ciotti for the data used in figure 1, Dr Severine Alvain for generously conceding us figure 2 and Dr Tihomir Kostadinov, Dr David Siegel and Dr Stephane Maritorena for giving us the permission to use figure 3, adapted from Kostadinov et al. (2009). We are also very thankful to the anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments.