Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Décima, Moira
• Stukel, Michael R
• Nodder, Scott D
• Gutiérrez-Rodríguez, Andrés
• Selph, Karen E
• Dos Santos, Adriana Lopes
• Safi, Karl
• Kelly, Thomas B
• Deans, Fenella
• Morales, Sergio E
• Baltar, Federico
• Latasa, Mikel
• Gorbunov, Maxim Y
• Pinkerton, Matt

Titel

Salp blooms drive strong increases in passive carbon export in the Southern Ocean

Ist Teil von

• Nature communications, 2023-02, Vol.14 (1), p.425-425, Article 425

Ort / Verlag

England: Nature Publishing Group

Erscheinungsjahr

2023

Link zum Volltext

Quelle

EZB-FREE-00999 freely available EZB journals

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• The Southern Ocean contributes substantially to the global biological carbon pump (BCP). Salps in the Southern Ocean, in particular Salpa thompsoni, are important grazers that produce large, fast-sinking fecal pellets. Here, we quantify the salp bloom impacts on microbial dynamics and the BCP, by contrasting locations differing in salp bloom presence/absence. Salp blooms coincide with phytoplankton dominated by diatoms or prymnesiophytes, depending on water mass characteristics. Their grazing is comparable to microzooplankton during their early bloom, resulting in a decrease of ~1/3 of primary production, and negative phytoplankton rates of change are associated with all salp locations. Particle export in salp waters is always higher, ranging 2- to 8- fold (average 5-fold), compared to non-salp locations, exporting up to 46% of primary production out of the euphotic zone. BCP efficiency increases from 5 to 28% in salp areas, which is among the highest recorded in the global ocean.