Marine ecosystems nutrient limitation

The availability of reactive nitrogen limits photosynthesis in a wide variety of terrestrial and marine ecosystems. Nitrogen limitation is particularly common in temperate and boreal forests, temperate grasslands, and Arctic and subalpine tundra, and in estuaries and coastal marine ecosystems in temperate zones.Introduction of relatively large external inputs of the nutrient must be expected to change the productivity of affected ecosystems, as well as the modes of their nitrogen storage and composition of their species. 

Howarth, R.W., Nutrient limitation of net primary production in marine ecosystems, Ann. Rev. Ecol. Syst., 19, 89, 1988. 

Howarth, R. W. 1988. Nutrient limitation of net primary productivity in marine ecosystems. Annual Review of... 

Oviatt, C., Doering, P., Nowicki, B., Reed, L., Cole, J., and Frithsen, J. (1995). An ecosystem level experiment on nutrient limitation in temperate coastal marine environments. Mar. Ecol. Prog. Ser. 116, 171-179. 

Horrigan, S. G., Montoya, J. P., Nevins, J. L., and McCarthy, J. J. (1990). Natural isotopic composition of dissolved inorganic nitrogen in the Chesapeake Bay. Estuar. Coast. Shelf Sci. 30, 393—410. Horrocks, J. L., Stewart, G. R., and Dennison, W. C. (1995). Tissue nutrient content of Gracilaria spp. (Rhodophyta) and water quality along an estuarine gradient. Mar. Freshw. Res. 46, 975—983. Howarth, R. W. (1988). Nutrient limitation of net primary production in marine ecosystems. Annu. Rev. Ecol. Syst. 19, 89-110. 

Armstrong, R. A. (1994). Grazing limitation and nutrient limitation in marine ecosystems — Steady-state solutions of an ecosystem model with multiple food chains. Limnol. Oceanogr. 39, 597—608. 

Howarth, R. W., and Marino, R. (2006). Nitrogen as the limiting nutrient for eutrophication in coastal marine ecosystems Evolving views over 3 decades. Limnol. Oceanogr. 51, 364—376. 

Lapointe B. E. and O Connell J. D. (1989) Nutrient-enhanced productivity of Cladophroa prolifera in Harrington Sounds, Bermuda eutrophication of a confined, phosphorus-limited marine ecosystem. Est. Coast Shelf Sci. 28, 347-360. 

For each of these factors, there are reasons why nitrogen limitation tends to be more prevalent in coastal marine ecosystems than in lakes. For instance, lakes receive nutrient inputs from upstream terrestrial ecosystems and from the atmosphere, while estuaries and coastal marine systems receive nntrients from these sources as well as from neighboring oceanic water masses. For estuaries such as those along the northeastern coast of the United States, the ocean-water inputs of nutrients tend to have a nitrogen phosphoms ratio well below the Redfield ratio dne to denitrification on the continental shelves (Nixon et al. 1995, 1996). Thns, given similar nntrient inputs from land, estnaries are likely to be more nitrogen limited than are lakes. 

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