Marine Biology

3. Salinity

Besides light and temperature, salinity also is known to influence primary production. For example, Skeletonema shows an optimum rate of photosynthesis at salinities ranging from 15 and 20%, although the process could go on in a much wider range of 11 - 40 %. Further, many species of dinoflagellates such as Ceratium, Peridinium and Prorocentrum reproduce actively at lower salinities. However, generally salinity has not much influence on the overall productivity of ocean, mainly because there is no significant salinity variation in the open ocean.