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Short-term fate of phytodetritus across the Arabian Sea Oxygen Minimum Zone
1Netherlands Institute of Ecology (NIOO-KNAW), Centre for Estuarine and Marine Ecology, POB 140, 4400 AC Yerseke, The Netherlands
2University of Edinburgh, School of Geosciences, West Mains Road, EH9 3JW, Scotland
3Integrative Oceanography Division, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, La Jolla, CA 92093-0218 USA
*now at: Danish Meteorological Institute, Lyngbyvej 100, 2100 Copenhagen, Denmark
Abstract. The short-term fate of phytodetritus was investigated across the Pakistan margin of the Arabian Sea at water depths ranging from 140 to 1850 m, encompassing the oxygen minimum zone (~100–1100 m). Phytodetritus sedimentation events were simulated by adding 13C-labelled algal material to surface sediments in retrieved cores. Cores were incubated at in situ temperature and oxygen concentrations. Overlying waters were sampled periodically, and cores were recovered and sampled (for organisms and sediments) after durations of two and five days. The labelled carbon was subsequently traced into bacterial lipids, foraminiferan and macrofaunal biomass, and dissolved organic and inorganic pools. The majority of the label was left unprocessed in the sediment at the surface. The largest pool of processed carbon was found to be respiration, recovered as dissolved inorganic carbon. Both temperature and oxygen were found to influence the rate of respiration. Macrofaunal influence was most pronounced at the lower part of the oxygen minimum zone where it dominated the processing of phytodetritus.
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Citation: Andersson, J. H., Woulds, C., Schwartz, M., Cowie, G. L., Levin, L. A., Soetaert, K., and Middelburg, J. J.: Short-term fate of phytodetritus across the Arabian Sea Oxygen Minimum Zone, Biogeosciences Discuss., 4, 2493-2523, 2007. Bibtex EndNote Reference Manager
