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Tiny, but effective: Gelatinous zooplankton and the ocean biological carbon pump

Posted by mmaheigan

· Wednesday, March 25th, 2020

Barely visible to the naked eye, gelatinous zooplankton play important roles in marine food webs. Cnidaria, Ctenophora, and Urochordata are omnipresent and provide important food sources for many more highly developed marine organisms. These small, nearly transparent organisms also transport large quantities of “jelly-carbon” from the upper ocean to depth. A recent study in Global Biogeochemical Cycles focused on quantifying the gelatinous zooplankton contribution to the ocean carbon cycle.

Figure 1. Processes and pathways or gelatinous carbon transfer to the deep ocean.

Using >90,000 data points (1934 to 2011) from the Jellyfish Database Initiative (JeDI), the authors compiled global estimates of jellyfish biomass, production, vertical migration, and jelly carbon transfer efficiency. Despite their small biomass relative to the total mass of organisms living in the upper ocean, their rapid, highly efficient sinking makes them a globally significant source of organic carbon for deep-ocean ecosystems, with 43-48% of their upper ocean production reaching 2000 m, which translates into 0.016 Pg C yr^-1.

Figure 2. Mass deposition event of jellyfish at 3500 m in the Arabian Sea (Billett et al. 2006).

Sediment trap data have suggested that carbon transport associated with large, episodic gelatinous blooms in localized open ocean and continental shelf regions could often exceed phytodetrital sources, in particular instances. These mass deposition events and their contributions to deep carbon export must be taken into account in models to better characterize marine ecosystems and reduce uncertainties in our understanding of the ocean’s role in the global carbon cycle.

Links:

Jellyfish Database Initiative http://jedi.nceas.ucsb.edu, http://jedi.nceas.ucsb.edu-dmo.org/dataset/526852 )

Authors:
Mario Lebrato (Christian‐Albrechts‐University Kiel and Bazaruto Center for Scientific Studies, Mozambique)
Markus Pahlow (GEOMAR)
Jessica R. Frost (South Florida Water Management District)
Marie Küter (Christian‐Albrechts‐University Kiel)
Pedro de Jesus Mendes (Marine and Environmental Scientific and Technological Solutions, Germany)
Juan‐Carlos Molinero (GEOMAR)
Andreas Oschlies (GEOMAR)

Estimating the large-scale biological pump: Do eddies matter?

Posted by mmaheigan

· Wednesday, December 4th, 2019

One factor that limits our capacity to quantify the ocean biological carbon pump is uncertainty associated with the physical injection of particulate (POC) and dissolved (DOC) organic carbon to the ocean interior. It is challenging to integrate the effects of these pumps, which operate at small spatial (<100 km) and temporal (<1 month) scales. Previous observational and fine-scale modeling studies have thus far been unable to quantify these small-scale effects. In a recent study published in Global Biogeochemical Cycles, authors explored the influence of these physical carbon pumps relative to sinking (gravity-driven) particles on annual and regional scales using a high-resolution (2 km) biophysical model of the North Atlantic that simulates intense eddy-driven subduction hotspots that are consistent with observations.

Figure 1: North Atlantic idealized double gyre ocean biophysical model. Top: Sea surface temperature, surface chlorophyll and mixed-layer depth during the spring bloom (March 21). Bottom: total export of organic carbon (POC+DOC) at 100 and individual contributions from the gravitational (particle sinking) and subduction (mixing, eddy advection and Ekman pumping) pumps for one day during the spring bloom (March 21) and averaged annually. Physical subduction hotspots visible on the daily export contribute little to the annual export due to strong compensation of upward and downward motions.

The authors showed that eddy dynamics can transport carbon below the mixed-layer (500-1000 m depth), but this mechanism contributes little (<5%) to annual export at the basin scale due to strong compensation between upward and downward fluxes (Figure 1). Additionally, the authors evidenced that small-scale mixing events intermittently export large amounts of suspended DOC and POC.

These results underscore the need to expand the traditional view of the mixed-layer carbon pump (wintertime export of DOC) to include downward mixing of POC associated with short-lived springtime mixing events, as well as eddy-driven subduction, which can contribute to longer-term ocean carbon storage. High-resolution measurements are needed to validate these model results and constrain the magnitude of the compensation between upward and downward carbon transport by small-scale physical processes.

Authors:
Laure Resplandy (Princeton University)
Marina Lévy (Sorbonne Université)
Dennis J. McGillicuddy Jr. (WHOI)

A role for tropical nitrogen fixers in glacial CO2 drawdown

Posted by mmaheigan

· Wednesday, December 4th, 2019

Iron fertilization of marine phytoplankton by Aeolian dust is a well-established mechanism for atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO₂) drawdown by the ocean. When atmospheric CO₂ decreased by 90-100 ppm during previous ice ages, fertilization of iron-limited phytoplankton in the high latitudes was thought to have contributed up to ¹/₃ (30 ppm) of the total CO₂ drawdown. Unfortunately, recent modeling studies suggest that substantially less CO₂ (only 2-10 ppm) is sequestered by the ocean in response to high latitude fertilization.

The limited capacity for high latitude CO₂sequestration in response to iron enrichment motivated the authors of a new study published in Nature Communications to address how lower latitude phytoplankton could contribute to CO₂ drawdown. The authors used an ocean model to show that in response to Aeolian iron fertilization, dinitrogen (N₂) fixers, specialized phytoplankton that introduce bioavailable nitrogen to tropical surface waters, drive the sequestration of an additional 7-16 ppm of CO₂ by the ocean.

Figure 1: Scenarios of Fe supply to the tropical Pacific. In the low iron scenario, analogous to the modern climate, N₂ fixation (yellow zone and dots) is concentrated in the Northwest and Southwest subtropical Pacific where aeolian dust deposition is greatest. Non-limiting PO₄ concentrations (green zone and dots) exist within the tropics and spread laterally from the area of upwelling near the Americas and at the equator (blue zone). In the high Fe scenario, analogous to the glacial climate, N₂ fixation couples to the upwelling zones in the east Pacific, enabling strong utilisation of PO₄, the vertical expansion of suboxic zones (grey bubbles) and a deeper injection of carbon-enriched organic matter (downward squiggly arrows).

These results provide evidence of a tropical ocean CO₂ sequestration pathway, the mere existence of which is hotly debated. Importantly, the study describes an additional mechanism of CO₂ drawdown that is complementary to the high latitude mechanism. When combined, their contributions elevate iron-driven CO₂ drawdown towards the expected 30 ppm, making iron fertilization a driver of a stronger biological pump on a global scale.

Authors:
Pearse Buchanan (University of Liverpool, University of Tasmania, CSIRO Oceans and Atmosphere, ARC Centre of Excellence in Climate System Science)
Zanna Chase (University of Tasmania)
Richard Matear (CSIRO Oceans and Atmosphere, ARC Centre of Excellence in Climate Extremes)
Steven Phipps (University of Tasmania)
Nathaniel Bindoff (University of Tasmania, CSIRO Oceans and Atmosphere, ARC Centre of Excellence in Climate Extremes, Antarctic Climate and Ecosystems Cooperative Research Centre)

The ecology of the biological carbon pump

Posted by mmaheigan

· Tuesday, October 15th, 2019

Plankton in the surface ocean convert CO₂ into organic biomass thereby fueling marine food webs. Part of this organic biomass sinks down into the deep ocean, where the surface-derived organic carbon, or respired CO₂, is locked in for decades to millennia. Without the biological carbon pump, atmospheric CO₂ would be ~200 ppm higher than it is today. We know that ecological processes in the surface ocean plankton communities have a paramount importance on the efficiency of the biological carbon pump. Unfortunately, however, the mechanisms how ecology determines sinking fluxes are poorly understood.

A recent study in Global Biogeochemical Cycles used large-scale in situ mesocosms to explore how the ecological interplay within plankton communities affects the downward flux of organic material. Organic biomass tends to sink faster when produced by smaller organisms because the sinking material they generate forms dense aggregates. Conversely, larger organisms produce relatively porous particles that sink more slowly.

Figure: Flow chart illustrating how plankton community structure affects the properties of sinking organic particles and ultimately the strength and efficiency of the biological carbon pump. The thick arrows at the bottom indicate that flux attenuation depends on the properties of particulate matter formed in the surface ocean. For example, slow-sinking porous aggregates containing large amounts of easily degradable organic substances will decay faster (right side) than dense aggregates of more refractory organic matter (left side).

The key finding of this study was the unexpectedly large influence that plankton community composition has on the degradation rate of sinking organic biomass. In fact, degradation rates changed maximally 15-fold over the course of the study while sinking speed changed only 3-fold. Degradation rate of sinking material, measured in oxygen consumption assays, was quite variable and tended to be higher for more easily degradable fresh organic matter. The rate was lower during harmful algal blooms, which produce toxic substances that inhibit organisms that feed on aggregates thereby reducing degradation rates. These findings are an important step forward as they show that our predictive understanding of the biological carbon pump could be improved substantially when linking degradation rates of sinking material with ecological processes in surface ocean plankton communities.

Authors:
L. T. Bach (University of Tasmania)
P. Stange, J. Taucher, E. P. Achterberg, M. Esposito, U. Riebesell (GEOMAR)
M. Algueró‐Muñiz (Alfred-Wegener-Institut Helmholtz)
H. Horn (NIOZ and Utrecht University)

Upwelling and solubility drive global surface dissolved inorganic carbon (DIC) distribution

Posted by mmaheigan

· Tuesday, August 20th, 2019

What drives the latitudinal gradient in open-ocean surface DIC concentration? Understanding the processes that drive the distribution of carbon in the surface ocean is essential to the study of the ocean carbon cycle and future predictions of ocean acidification and the ocean carbon sink.

Authors of a recent study in Biogeosciences investigated causes of the observed latitudinal trend in DIC and salinity-normalized DIC (nDIC) (Figure 1). The latitudinal trend in nDIC is not driven solely by the latitudinal gradient in temperature (through its effects on solubility), as is commonly assumed. Careful analysis using the Global Ocean Data Analysis Project version 2 (GLODAPv2) database revealed that physical supply from below (upwelling, entrainment in winter) at high latitudes is another major driver of the latitudinal pattern. The contribution of physical exchange explains an otherwise puzzling observation: Surface waters are lower in nDIC in the high-latitude North Atlantic than in other basins. This cannot be accounted for by temperature difference but rather is explained by a difference in the carbon content of deeper waters (lower in the subarctic North Atlantic than in the subarctic North Pacific or Southern Ocean) that are mixed up into the surface during winter months.

Figure caption: (Top) spatial distributions of surface ocean DIC and (bottom) salinity-normalised (nDIC). Both, most notably nDIC, increase towards the poles. Values are normalised to year 2005 to remove bias from changing levels of atmospheric CO2 in some observations before and after 2005. Data are from GLODAPv2.

These results also suggest that the upwelling/entrainment of water that is high in alkalinity generates a large and long-lasting effect on DIC, one that persists beyond the timescale of CO₂ gas exchange equilibration with the . That is to say, the impact of changes in upwelling on the ocean’s carbon source-sink strength depends not only on the DIC content of the upwelled water but also on its TA content.

Authors:
Yingxu Wu (University of Southampton)
Mathis Hain (University of California, Santa Cruz)
Matthew Humphreys (University of East Anglia and University of Southampton)
Sue Hartman (National Oceanography Centre, Southampton)
Toby Tyrrell (University of Southampton)

Air-sea gas exchange estimates biased by multi-day surface trapping

Posted by mmaheigan

· Tuesday, August 20th, 2019

Routine measurements of air-sea gas exchange assume a homogeneous gas concentration across the upper few meters of the ocean. But is this assumption valid? A recent study in Biogeosciences revealed substantial systematic gradients of nitrous oxide (N₂O) in the top few meters of the Peruvian upwelling regime. These gradients lead to a 30% overestimate of integrated N₂O emissions across the entire region, with local emissions overestimated by as much as 800%.

Figure caption: Air-sea gas exchange estimates can be biased by gas concentration gradients within the upper few meters of the ocean; in particular, surface trapping over several days’ duration can generate substantial gradients.

The N₂O gradients off Peru form during multi-day events of surface trapping, in which near-surface stratification dampens turbulent mixing. Until now, surface trapping was assumed to be a diurnal (driven by solar warming) process without memory, whereby only weak gradients would form during the hours of trapping and then dissipate. It is likely that multi-day surface trapping occurs in other ocean regions as well. The total impact on emission estimates of different greenhouse gases is yet to be quantified, but given the findings in the Peruvian upwelling system, could be significant globally.

Authors:
Tim Fischer, Annette Kock, Damian L. Arévalo-Martínez, Marcus Dengler, Peter Brandt, Hermann W. Bange (GEOMAR)

Can microzooplankton shape the depth distribution of phytoplankton?

Posted by mmaheigan

· Tuesday, July 23rd, 2019

Photosynthetic, single-celled phytoplankton form the base of many marine and lacustrine (lake) food webs. These microscopic algae typically occur in the sunlit surface layer, but in many ecosystems, there are also sub-surface peaks in phytoplankton and chlorophyll-a, their key photosynthetic pigment. Historically, scientists have explained deep chlorophyll maximum (DCM) formation by invoking “bottom-up” processes such as nutrient and light co-limitation, while less attention has been paid to “top-down” controls such as predation.

A recent study in Nature Communications challenges this conventional wisdom by arguing that microzooplankton (top-down control) can cause the formation of DCMs by preferentially consuming phytoplankton near the surface. This can occur when microzooplankton exhibit light-dependent grazing—a known but not well-understood phenomenon in which prey consumption rates increase with increasing light intensity. By incorporating this phenomenon into mathematical models, the authors showed that this can create a “spatial refuge” for phytoplankton in deeper, darker parts of the water column, where there is enough sunlight to photosynthesize, but too little for efficient microzooplankton predation. Furthermore, when light-dependent grazing is incorporated into a global ocean biogeochemistry model (COBALT: Carbon, Ocean Biogeochemistry and Lower Trophics – planktonic ecosystem model), DCMs that are already present due to bottom-up controls deepen, improving agreement between model predictions, satellite data, and in situ observations.

Figure legend: Global comparison of annual mean deep chlorophyll maxima (DCM) depths (A) predicted by the unmodified COBALT model, (B) predicted by the COBALT model modified to include light-dependent microzooplankton grazing, and (C) estimated based on satellite data. Incorporating light-dependent grazing deepens the DCM, especially in oligotrophic gyres, and improves agreement with observational data.

These findings highlight the importance of higher trophic levels in regulating aquatic primary productivity. The model predictions suggest that not only can microzooplankton suppress primary production near the surface, but by shifting phytoplankton abundances deeper, they may increase carbon export via the biological pump. Future field tests of this hypothesis—i.e. detailed grazing measurements in stratified water columns with DCMs—can elucidate the extent to which light-dependent grazing shapes phytoplankton distribution in real biological systems.

Authors:
Holly Moeller (University of California Santa Barbara)
Charlotte Laufkötter (University of Bern and Princeton University)
Edward Sweeney (Sea Education Association and Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History)
Matthew Johnson (Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)

Nutrient and carbon limitation drive broad-scale patterns of mixotrophy in the ocean

Posted by mmaheigan

· Tuesday, May 14th, 2019

In the ocean, unicellular eukaryotes are often mixotrophic, which means they photosynthesize and also consume prey. In recent decades, it has become clear that mixotrophs are ubiquitous in sunlit ocean habitats. Additionally, models predict that mixotrophs have important impacts on productivity, nutrient cycling, carbon export, and food web structure. However, there is little understanding of the environmental conditions that select for a mixotrophic lifestyle, and it is unclear how mixotrophs succeed in competition with autotrophic and heterotrophic specialists. A recent study in PNAS that synthesized measurements of mixotrophic nanoflagellates showed that mixotrophs are more abundant in stratified, well-lit, low latitude environments (Figure 1A). They are also more abundant, relative to pure heterotrophs, in productive coastal environments (Figure 1B). A trait-based model analysis revealed that the success of mixotrophs depends on the fact that they are less nutrient-limited than autotrophs (due to prey-derived nutrients) and less carbon-limited than heterotrophs (due to photosynthesis). This synergy requires sufficient light, leading to success in low latitude environments. Similarly, a greater supply of dissolved nutrients relative to prey, as commonly observed in coastal environments, favors mixotrophs relative to heterotrophs. One implication of these results is that carbon fixation at lower latitudes may be enhanced by mixotrophy, while limiting nutrients may be more efficiently transferred to higher trophic levels.

Figure 1. Estimated abundance of autotrophic, mixotrophic, and heterotrophic nanoflagellates across environmental gradients in the ocean.

Author:
Kyle Edwards (Univ. Hawaii at Manoa)

Zooplankton vertical migrations represent a significant source of carbon export in the ocean

Posted by mmaheigan

· Friday, March 15th, 2019

Huge numbers of tiny marine animals, known as zooplankton, migrate between the surface ocean and the twilight zone (200 – 1,000 m below the surface) everyday; it is the largest migration event anywhere on the planet. How much carbon do these animals transport with them and how much do they leave behind sequestered in the deep ocean? In a recent publication in Global Biogeochemical Cycles, Archibald et al. (2019) used a simple model to estimate the magnitude of carbon flux into the twilight zone from zooplankton vertical migrations and observed that it was a significant contributor to carbon export on a global scale. The study also revealed strong regional patterns in migration-mediated carbon flux, with the greatest impact on export occurring at subtropical latitudes (Figure 1).

Figure 1. Percent increase in the modeled carbon export flux out of the surface ocean as a result of zooplankton vertical migrations.

Migrating zooplankton also consume significant amounts of oxygen at depth, generating a local maximum in the oxygen utilization profile at depth within the migration layer. By including the effect of the metabolism of migrating zooplankton, the model is able to produce a more detailed picture of oxygen utilization over the twilight zone. The model in this study effectively simulates the complex phenomenon of zooplankton vertical migrations, providing a simple framework that will allow researchers to investigate how this key component of the global carbon cycle might change under future climatic conditions. For example, if increased stratification leads to a greater representation of small cells in phytoplankton communities, then zooplankton migration-mediated carbon export is expected to make up a proportionally larger fraction of the total carbon export flux.

Authors:
Kevin M. Archibald (Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and Massachusetts Institute of Technology)
David A. Siegel (University of California, Santa Barbara)
Scott C. Doney (University of Virginia)

Rapid warming and salinity changes mask acidification in Gulf of Maine waters

Posted by mmaheigan

· Wednesday, February 20th, 2019

Why don’t we see ocean acidification in over a decade of high-frequency observations in the Gulf of Maine? The answer lies in a recent decade of changes that raised sea surface temperature and salinity, and in turn dampened the expected acidification signal and caused the saturation states of calcite minerals to increase. From 2004 to 2014, sea surface temperatures in the Gulf of Maine were higher than any observations recorded in the region over the past 150 years. This greatly impacted both CO₂ solubility and the sea surface carbonate system, as detailed in a recent paper in Biogeochemistry.

Over the 34 years of the time-series, the recent event is extreme, but interannual and decadal salinity and temperature variability also influenced carbonate system parameters, which makes it difficult to isolate and quantify an anthropogenic ocean acidification signal, especially if relying on shorter-term observations (Figure 1).

Figure 1: Modeled Ω_Aragonite (top panel) and pH (bottom panel) anomalies relative to monthly 2004 data. The red lines show trends prior to and after 2004, after which warming accelerated.

For those with a stake in profiting from or managing extractive resources that are susceptible to ocean acidification such as commercially important lobster and bivalves, understanding how ecosystems will be affected is critical. These analyses clearly demonstrate how physical processes can either accelerate or mitigate ocean carbonate system changes, thus confounding the detection of ocean acidification that is expected from increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide. To assess whether an ecosystem or species is at risk or aided by such processes, it is important to observe, understand, and be able to model all sources of carbonate system variability.

Authors:
Joe Salisbury and Bror Jönsson (Both at Ocean Processes Analysis Laboratory, University of New Hampshire)

Funding for the Ocean Carbon & Biogeochemistry Project Office is provided by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). The OCB Project Office is housed at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.

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