phytoclass

Determine the chlorophyll a (Chl a) concentrations of different phytoplankton groups based on their pigment biomarkers. The method uses non-negative matrix factorisation and simulated annealing to minimise error between the observed and estimated values of pigment concentrations (Hayward et al. (2023) doi:10.1002/lom3.10541). The approach is similar to the widely used 'CHEMTAX' program (Mackey et al. 1996) doi:10.3354/meps144265, but is more straightforward, accurate, and not reliant on initial guesses for the pigment to Chl a ratios for phytoplankton groups.