Vol. 27, No.

16 | 5 Aug 2019 | OPTICS EXPRESS A1157

limitations on spatial and temporal sampling, as well as labor intensive and time consuming
with low efficiency [17]. Remote sensing technique will exert its incomparable advantages in
large-scale, periodic, and conventional monitoring to marine environment changes [18,19].
Remote sensing monitoring of variations of phytoplankton assemblages has been usually
carried out by detecting the chlorophyll a concentration in marine waters [20,21]. Although it
can explain well the total phytoplankton biomass, note that the only chlorophyll a indicator is
not sufficient to quantify comprehensive and fine characteristics of phytoplankton
assemblages, such as phytoplankton species compositions and changes. Fortunately, this has
received increasing concerns in recent years, and more and more studies on the remote sensing
of fine characteristics of phytoplankton assemblages were being done [22].
Considering that the cell sizes are key characteristics of phytoplankton community, and are
closely related to many marine biogeochemical cycles [23–25], the phytoplankton assemblages
have been conventionally divided into three size classes, namely so-called phytoplankton size
classes (PSCs), microplankton (> 20 m), nanoplankton (2-20 m), and picoplankton (< 2 m)
[25]. Detecting the PSCs can be thus regarded as an important route to investigate fine
characteristics of phytoplankton assemblages in marine waters. Some remote sensing
algorithms have been developed to estimate the PSCs, especially in the past decade, such as
abundance-based approaches [22,26–31], and spectra-based approaches [32–36]. Those
proposed algorithms functioned well, especially in open ocean waters, and yet note that very
limited studies aim at optically complex turbid coastal waters. Anyhow, the remote sensing
estimation of the PSCs is essentially to detect three sub-concentrations of chlorophyll a for
micro-, nano-, and picoplankton in marine waters, which will refine the spatiotemporal
distribution characteristics of the phytoplankton biomass to some extent.
On the other hand, quantifying concentrations of phytoplankton diagnostic pigments or
species in marine waters is another key approach to explore and document fine variations of
phytoplankton assemblages. Several up-to-date studies showed pioneering efforts on remote
sensing estimations to phytoplankton diagnostic pigments or species concentrations in marine
waters. For instance, Chase et al. (2017) [37] made use of in situ hyperspectral remote-sensing
reflectance measurements to develop an inversion algorithm for detecting phytoplankton
pigments, including chlorophylls a, b, c1 + c2, and the photoprotective carotenoids, which
defined phytoplankton pigment absorption as a sum of Gaussian functions. Moisan et al. (2011)
[38] utilized phytoplankton absorption spectra and HPLC pigment observations to extract
pigment-specific absorption in high correlations, and further used the derived pigment-specific
absorption in a linear inverse calculation to estimate the various phytoplankton pigments, with
good correlations (R2 > 0.5) for 7 pigments in the 18 pigment fields. In the northern South
China Sea, Pan et al. (2013) [39] developed empirical algorithms for estimating species specific
cell abundance, including the cell abundances of prochlorococcus, synechococcus, and
pico-eukaryotes, which were related to the total chlorophyll a and zeaxanthin pigment
concentrations. Kramer et al. (2018) [40] evaluated and refined a bio-optical algorithm to
discriminate diatom dominance from other phytoplankton in the surface ocean, by using the
relationship between ratios of remote sensing reflectance and chlorophyll a concentration.
Clearly, the investigations on the estimation of phytoplankton diagnostic pigments or
species concentrations have gradually received increasing concerns, and yet limitations are
distinct based on our knowledge on the current research works. Owing to a lack of those
potentially “fine” spectral absorption characteristics on which the inversion algorithms were
established, there still exists a certain gap that cannot achieve a true application by satellite
observations. Meanwhile, the phytoplankton species or pigments that can be identified by those
existing algorithms are still limited, which inadequately supports us to know the phytoplankton
community structures well. Note that optical complexity in those coastal turbid waters may
present potential challenges and limitations in extracting phytoplankton species information.
For instance, the non-algal particles may preclude the ability to retrieve information about the
phytoplankton groups, when they are a large contribution to total absorption. On the other hand,