Length, width, shape regularity, and chain structure: time series analysis of phytoplankton morphology from imagery

Functional traits are increasingly used to assess changes in phytoplankton community structure and to link individual characteristics to ecosystem functioning. However, they are usually inferred from taxonomic identification or manually measured for each organism, both time consuming approaches. Instead, we focus on high throughput imaging to describe the main temporal variations of morphological changes of phytoplankton in Narragansett Bay, a coastal time-series station. We analyzed a 2-yr dataset of morphological features automatically extracted from continuous imaging of individual phytoplankton images (~ 105 million images collected by an Imaging FlowCytobot). We identified synthetic morphological traits using multivariate analysis and revealed that morphological variations were mainly due to changes in length, width, shape regularity, and chain structure. Morphological changes were especially important in winter with successive peaks of larger cells with increasing complexity and chains more clearly connected. Small nanophytoplankton were present year-round and constituted the base of the community, especially apparent during the transitions between diatom blooms. High inter-annual variability was also observed. On a weekly timescale, increases in light were associated with more clearly connected chains while more complex shapes occurred at lower nitrogen concentrations. On an hourly timescale, temperature was the determinant variable constraining cell morphology, with a general negative influence on length and a positive one on width, shape regularity, and chain structure. These first insights into the phytoplankton morphology of Narragansett Bay highlight the possible morphological traits driving the phytoplankton succession in response to light, temperature, and nutrient changes.