The same conclusion can be given to the survey period at station
SM (Fig. 4), with a mean temperature difference of 1.0 C.
Approaching the cool season, the temperature difference tends to
reverse, with higher temperatures at Amédée lighthouse towards
the end of the survey. The reason being that the shallow waters
of station SM react more quickly to solar radiation variations than
the deeper ones, while Amédée lighthouse waters are partially
influenced by the open ocean, with less seasonal temperature
amplitude (Ouillon et al., 2005).
To summarise, the short-term variability of the SW lagoon’s
phytoplankton richness appears to be strongly influenced by the
mainland and less so by oceanic waters. The question remains,