Our inability to develop a mechanistic approach to the assignment of the photosynthesis-irradiance parameters used in remote sensing models of marine primary production is due to both an uneven distribution of experimental observations in both space and time and a lack of information on phytoplankton community structure and/or environmental conditions at the time the experiments were made.

One of the aims of the ESA BICEP project is to expand existing global datasets of the photosynthesis-irradiance (PE) parameters.  This data mining effort has dramatically improved both the spatial and temporal coverage of these parameters that are critical to covert maps of surface chlorophyll to estimates of water-column primary production.  We have used the > 10,000 experimental measurements and metadata assembled as part of the BICEP project to explore how changes in environmental forcing and the taxonomic structure of phytoplankton communities are related to the PE parameters.  Here we focus on ‘regions of interests’ that cover the four ocean biomes defined by Longhurst.  These ocean biomes (Coastal, Polar, Trades and Westerlies) represent the primary unit of biogeographic division of the global ocean and provide a useful way of examining difference in variability caused by large-scale changes in environmental forcing.  Our dataset reveals biome-specific differences in the relationship between taxonomic composition and phytoplankton photophysiology. The patterns of variability observed in this study can be used to improve our assignment of PE parameters for satellite-based studies of ocean primary production and provide guidance for targeted future studies of marine photosynthesis.