Inorganic nutrients are essential for phytoplankton

Inorganic nutrients, such as nitrogen (N), phosphate (P) and silicate (Si) are essential nutrients for phytoplankton to build their cells. This movie also shows that when phytoplankton growth takes off in early spring in the South, it is accompanied by a rapid decline of the phosphate concentration. If phosphate or one of the other nutrient concentrations (N or Si) becomes limiting, this terminates the spring bloom. During summer phosphate is the most limiting nutrient in the coastal zone.