Archive for Atlantic

Hotspots of biological production: Submesoscale changes in respiration and production

Posted by mmaheigan 
· Thursday, April 26th, 2018 

The biological pump is complex and variable. To better understand it, scientists have often focused on variations in biological parameters such as fluorescence and community structure, and have less often observed variations in rates of production. Production rates can be estimated using oxygen as a tracer, since photosynthesis produces oxygen and respiration consumes it. In a recent article in Deep Sea Research Part I, the authors presented high-resolution maps of oxygen in the upper 140 m of the ocean in the subtropical and tropical Atlantic, produced from a towed undulating instrument. This provides a synoptic, high-resolution view of oxygen anomalies in the surface ocean. These data reveal remarkable hotspots of biological production and respiration co-located with areas of elevated fluorescence. These hotspots are often several kilometers wide (horizontal) and ~10 m long (vertical). They are preferentially associated with edges of eddies, but not all edges sampled contained hotspots. Although this study captures only two-dimensional glimpses of these hotspots, precluding formal calculations of production rates, likely estimates of source water suggest that many of these hotspots may actually be areas of enhanced respiration rather than enhanced photosynthesis. The paper describes a conceptual model of nutrients, new production, respiration, fluorescence, and oxygen during the formation and decline of these hotspots. These data raise intriguing questions–if the hotspots do indeed have substantially different rates of production and respiration than surrounding waters, then they could lead to significant changes in estimates of production in the upper ocean. Additionally, understanding the mechanisms that produce these hotspots could be critical for predicting the effects of climate change on the magnitude of the biological pump.

(a) Oxygen concentrations and (b) fluorescence at ~1 km resolution over 300 km from 15.13°N, 57.47°W to 12.30°N, 56.42° W, as measured by sensors attached to the (c) Video Plankton Recorder II. Note that no contouring was used for this plot – every pixel represents an actual data point. Figure modified from Stanley et al., 2017. VPR image photograph by Phil Alatalo.

Authors:
Rachel H. R. Stanley (Wellesley College)
Dennis J. McGillicuddy Jr. (WHOI)
Zoe O. Sandwith (WHOI)
Haley Pleskow (Wellesley College)

Feedbacks mitigate the impacts of atmospheric nitrogen deposition in the western North Atlantic

Posted by mmaheigan 
· Thursday, April 12th, 2018 

How do phytoplankton respond to atmospheric nitrogen deposition in the western North Atlantic, an area downwind of large agricultural and industrial centers? The biogeochemical impacts of this ‘fertilization’ remain unclear, as direct oceanic observations of atmospheric deposition are limited and models often cannot resolve the important processes.

In a recent study, St-Laurent et al. (2017) simulated the biogeochemical impacts of nitrogen deposition on surface waters of the western North Atlantic by combining year-specific deposition rates from the Community Multiscale Air Quality (CMAQ) model and a realistic 3-D biogeochemical model of the waters off the US east coast. Westerly winds from the continent and large fluxes of heat and moisture over the Gulf Stream produce a ‘hotspot’ of wet nitrogen deposition along the path of the current. This nitrogen input increases the local surface primary productivity by up to 30% during the summer. However, the study also identified important processes that mitigate the impact of atmospheric nitrogen deposition in other seasons and regions. Deposition weakens vertical nitrogen gradients in the upper 20 m and thus decreases the upward transport of nitrogen to the surface layer (a negative feedback). Increases in surface phytoplankton concentrations also negatively impact light availability below the surface through shelf-shading.

Atmospheric nitrogen deposition along the US east coast. (Left) Wet deposition of oxidized nitrogen over the Gulf Stream as simulated by the Community Multiscale Air Quality model (average 2004-2008). (Right) Increase in summer surface primary productivity in response to the deposition (average 2004-2008).

These results indicate that atmospheric nitrogen deposition has important impacts on the surface biogeochemistry of the western North Atlantic but that the response is not simply proportional to the deposition. Additional research is necessary to clarify the role played by atmospheric deposition in this region in past and future centuries. While inputs of atmospheric nitrogen associated with power plants and industries have decreased since the passage of the Clean Air Act, recent studies have revealed increasing atmospheric concentrations of reduced nitrogen. Continued coordination between modeling and observing efforts (both on land and over the ocean) are needed to improve our understanding of the impacts of deposition on the biological pump in this region of the Atlantic ocean.

 

Authors:
Pierre St-Laurent (VIMS, College of William and Mary)
Marjorie A.M. Friedrichs (VIMS, College of William and Mary)
Raymond G. Najjar (Pennsylvania State University)
Doug Martins (FLIR Systems Inc.)
Maria Herrmann (Pennsylvania State University)
Sonya K. Miller (Pennsylvania State University)
John Wilkin (Rutgers University)

Widespread nutrient co-limitation discovered in the South Atlantic

Posted by mmaheigan 
· Thursday, March 15th, 2018 

Unicellular photosynthetic microbes—phytoplankton—are responsible for virtually all oceanic primary production, which fuels marine food webs and plays a fundamental role in the global carbon cycle. Experiments to date have suggested that the growth of phytoplankton across much of the ocean is limited by either nitrogen or iron. But simultaneously low concentrations of these and other nutrients have been measured over large areas of the open ocean, raising the question: Are phytoplankton communities only limited by a single nutrient?

Authors of a study recently published in Nature tested this by conducting nutrient addition experiments on a GEOTRACES cruise in the nutrient-deficient South Atlantic gyre. Seawater samples were amended with nitrogen, iron, and cobalt both individually and in various combinations. Concurrent nitrogen and iron addition stimulated increased phytoplankton growth, yielding a ~40-fold increase in chlorophyll a. Supplementary addition of cobalt or cobalt-containing vitamin B12 further enhanced phytoplankton growth in several experiments.

Experiments conducted throughout the southeast Atlantic GEOTRACES GA08 cruise transect (left panel) demonstrated that nitrogen and iron had to be added to significantly stimulate phytoplankton growth (right panel). Supplementary addition of cobalt (or cobalt-containing vitamin B12) stimulated significant additional growth.

In addition to co-limited sites, the study identified ‘singly’ and ‘serially’ limited sites. These limitation regimes could be predicted by the measured ambient seawater nutrient concentrations, demonstrating the potential for using nutrient datasets to make confident predictions about limitation at larger spatial scales, an approach that is being more widely used in programmes like GEOTRACES,.

Finally, a complex, state-of-the-art biogeochemical ocean model suggested a much smaller extent of nutrient co-limitation than the experiments indicated. Authors attributed this to relatively restricted microbial and nutrient diversity in the model. These findings have implications for how such models are constructed if they are to represent nutrient co-limitation in the ocean and accurately project changes in ocean productivity in the future.

 

Authors:
Thomas J. Browning (GEOMAR)
Eric P. Achterberg (GEOMAR)
Insa Rapp (GEOMAR)
Anja Engel (GEOMAR)
Erin M. Bertrand (Dalhousie University)
Alessandro Tagliabue (University of Liverpool)
Mark Moore (University of Southampton)

Seagrass carbon dynamics: Gulf of Mexico

Posted by mmaheigan 
· Thursday, March 1st, 2018 

Seagrasses have died-off in great numbers, resulting in the release of stored carbon. Seagrasses represent a substantive and relatively unconstrained North American and Caribbean Sea blue carbon sink in the tropical Western Hemisphere. Fine-scale estimates of regional seagrass carbon stocks, as well as carbon fluxes from anthropogenic disturbances and natural processes and gains in sedimentary carbon from seagrass restoration are currently lacking for the bulk of tropical Western Hemisphere seagrass systems.

To address this knowledge gap, in the subtropics and tropics, a recent study yielded estimates of organic carbon (Corg) stocks, losses, and restoration gains from several seagrass beds around the Gulf of Mexico (GoM). GoM-wide seagrass natural Corg stocks were estimated to be ~37.2–37.5Tg Corg. A unique method involving quadruplicate sampling in naturally-occurring, restored, continually-historically barren, and previously-disturbed-now-barren sites provided the first available Corg loss measurements for subtropical-tropical seagrasses. GoM Corg losses were slow, occurring over multiple years, and differed between sites, depending on disturbance type. Mean restored seagrass bed Corg stocks exceeded those of natural seagrass beds, underscoring the importance of seagrass restoration as a viable carbon sequestration strategy. For restored seagrass areas, the older the restoration site, the greater the Corg stock.

Organic carbon stocks for Gulf of Mexico sediments for the top 20 cm of sediment in always barren, impacted barren, natural seagrass, and restored seagrass sites. Natural and restored seagrass beds had significantly higher organic carbon stocks than impacted barren or always barren sediments.

Seagrass restoration appears to be an important tool for climate-change mitigation. In the USA and throughout the tropics and subtropics, restoration could reduce sedimentary carbon leakage and bolster total blue carbon stores, while facilitating increased fisheries and shoreline stability. Although well-planned and executed restoration of seagrass is more difficult than mangroves or marshes, there are >1 million hectares of degraded seagrass habitats that could be restored, which would greatly increase blue carbon sinks and support diverse marine species that rely on seagrass for habitat and food.

 

Authors:
Anitra Thorhaug (Yale School of Forestry)
Helen M. Poulos (Earth Sci., Wesleyan Univ.)
Jorge López-Portillo (Inecol, Mexico)
Timothy C.W. Ku (Earth Sci., Wesleyan Univ.)
Graeme P. Berlyn (Yale School of Forestry)

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