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Gaussian decomposition and component pigment spectral analysis of phytoplankton absorption spectra

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Abstract

The absorption spectrum of phytoplankton is an important bio-optical parameter for ocean color hyperspectral remote sensing; its magnitude and shape can be affected considerably by pigment composition and concentration. We conducted Gaussian decomposition to the absorption spectra of phytoplankton pigment and studied the spectral components of the phytoplankton, in which the package effect was investigated using pigment concentration data and phytoplankton absorption spectra. The decomposition results were compared with the corresponding concentrations of the five main pigment groups (chlorophylls a, b, and c, photo-synthetic carotenoids (PSC), and photo-protective carotenoids (PPC)). The results indicate that the majority of residual errors in the Gaussian decomposition are <0.001 m−1, and R2 of the power regression between characteristic bands and HPLC pigment concentrations (except for chlorophyll b) was 0.65 or greater for surface water samples at autumn cruise. In addition, we determined a strong predictive capability for chlorophylls a, c, PPC, and PSC. We also tested the estimation of pigment concentrations from the empirical specific absorption coefficient of pigment composition. The empirical decomposition showed that the Ficek model was the closest to the original spectra with the smallest residual errors. The pigment decomposition results and HPLC measurements of pigment concentration are in a high consistency as the scatter plots are distributed largely near the 1:1 line in spite of prominent seasonal variations. The Woźniak model showed a better fit than the Ficek model for Chl a, and the median relative error was small. The pigment component information estimated from the phytoplankton absorption spectra can help better remote sensing of hyperspectral ocean color that related to the changes in phytoplankton communities and varieties.

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7 Acknowledgement

We are grateful to the experimental crews of cruises in April 2003 spring and September 2003 autumn Yellow/East China Sea for their hard work during water sample collection, measurement, and analysis. The authors also thank the two anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments, which helped greatly in improving the manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Resources and Environmental Information System, Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100101, China

    Huping Ye & Xiaohan Liao

  2. Institute of Remote Sensing and Digital Earth, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100094, China

    Huping Ye, Bing Zhang, Qian Shen, Fangfang Zhang & Junsheng Li

  3. National Ocean Technology Center, Tianjin, 300112, China

    Huping Ye, Tongji Li & Jianhua Zhu

  4. China-Sri Lanka Joint Research and Demonstration Center for Water Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100085, China

    Huping Ye

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  1. Huping Ye
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  2. Bing Zhang
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  3. Xiaohan Liao
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  4. Tongji Li
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Correspondence to Jianhua Zhu or Junsheng Li.

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6 Data Availability Statement

The data of this study are available from the China’s National Ocean Technology Center but restrictions may apply due to the availability of some of the data that were used under license for this study, and thus, they are not publicly available. The data are however available from the authors upon reasonable request and with permission from the National Ocean Technology Center.

Supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 91638201, 41276184, 41771388 41471308, 41571361, 41701402), the Strategic Priority Research Program of Chinese Academy of Sciences (No. XDA2003030201), the National Key Research and Development Program of China (Nos. 2017YFB0503005, 2016YFC1400903, 2016YFB0501502), the High Resolution Earth Observation Systems of National Science and Technology Major Projects (No. 41-Y20A31-9003-15/17), the China-Sri Lanka Joint Research and Demonstration Center for Water Technology, and the State Development and Reform Commission’s Special Financial Projects (No. 2017ST000602)

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Ye, H., Zhang, B., Liao, X. et al. Gaussian decomposition and component pigment spectral analysis of phytoplankton absorption spectra. J. Ocean. Limnol. 37, 1542–1554 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00343-019-8079-z

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00343-019-8079-z

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