GROUP
Plymouth Field Course 2019
4
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Chlorophyll
ESTUARY
Chlorophyll in the estuary was sampled using a filter pump. For each niskin bottle three replicates were made. 50 ml of sea water was filtered through a 2 µm filter paper. The filter paper was then placed in 7ml of acetone to then be analysed in the lab using a fluorometer. The plot shows an overall significant decrease of chlorophyll concentration as salinity decreased (R²=0.159, p=0.009) although the data is widespread (SD= 2.985). A peak in chlorophyll concentration of 12.299 µg/L is registered at salinity 26.80, while the lowest value (0.0520 µg/L) is at salinity 34.5.
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Figure 1: A graph showing the variation of chlorophyll concentration against salinity i.e. as salinity increases down the estuary