Marine plankton

Guillard, R. R. L., and Ryther, J. H. (1962). Studies of marine planktonic diatoms 1. Cyclotella nana Hustedt and Detonula confervacea (cleve). Canadian J. Microbiol. 8 229-239. 

The cycles of carbon and the other main plant nutrients are coupled in a fundamental way by the involvement of these elements in photosynthetic assimilation and plant growth. Redfield (1934) and several others have shown that there are approximately constant proportions of C, N, S, and P in marine plankton and land plants ("Redfield ratios") see Chapter 10. This implies that the exchange flux of one of these elements between the biota reservoir and the atmosphere - or ocean - must be strongly influenced by the flux of the others. 

Fisher NS, Bjerregaard P, Fowler SW. 1983. Interactions of marine plankton with transuranic elements 3. Biokinetics of americium in euphausiids. Mar Biol 75 261-268. 

Thus the enrichment correction depends on the numerical value of 0.027 depletion of carbon-13 in plants, which in turn depends on the temperature at which the bio-organic material grew. The temperature coefficient for 13C/12C in marine plankton has been measured as 0.35 ppt/°C [59] and independently as 0.5 ppt/°C [60]. In the absence of more measurements we may assume it to be the larger of the two experimental values, namely... 

Chen, M. and Wang, W.-X. (2001). Bioavailability of natural colloid-bound iron to marine plankton influences of colloidal size and aging, Limnol. Oceanogr., 46, 1956-1967. 

Matsunaga T, Burgess JG, Yamada N, Komatsu K, Yoshida S, Wachi Y (1993) An ultraviolet (UV-A) absorbing biopterin glucoside from the marine planktonic cyanobacterium Oscillatoria sp. Appl Microbiol Biotech 39 250-253... 

Fisher, N. S., P. Bjerregaard, and S. W. Fowler (1983), Interactions of Marine Plankton with Trans-uranic Elements. 1. Biokinetics of Neptunium, Plutonium, Americium, and Valifornium in Phytoplankton", Limnol. Oceanogr.28, 432. 

This equation describes the ratios with which inorganic nutrients dissolved in seawater are converted by photosynthesis into the biomass of "average marine plankton" and oxygen gas 02. The opposite of this reaction is respiration, or the remineralization process by which organic matter is enzymatically oxidized back to inorganic nutrients and water. The atomic ratios (stoichiometry) of this reaction were established by... 

Goericke, R., and B. Fry. 1994. Variations of marine plankton 813C with latitude, temperature, and dissolved CO2 in the world ocean. Global Biogeochemical Cycles 8(l) 85-90. 

Using the rock cycle as an example, we can compute the turnover time of marine sediments with respect to river input of solid particles from (1) the mass of solids in the marine sediment reservoir (1.0 x 10 g) and (2) the annual rate of river input of particles (1.4 X lO g/y). This yields a turnover time of (1.0 x 10 " g)/(14 x lO g/y) = 71 X lo y. On a global basis, riverine input is the major source of solids buried in marine sediments lesser inputs are contributed by atmospheric feUout, glacial ice debris, hydrothermal processes, and in situ production, primarily by marine plankton. As shown in Figure 1.2, sediments are removed from the ocean by deep burial into the seafloor. The resulting sedimentary rock is either uplifted onto land or subducted into the mantle so the ocean basins never fill up with sediment. As discussed in Chapter 21, if all of the fractional residence times of a substance are known, the sum of their reciprocals provides an estimate of the residence time (Equation 21.17). 

Equation 8.4 predicts that aerobic respiration should release dissolved inorganic nitrogen and phosphorus into seawater in the same ratio that is present in plankton, i.e., 16 1. As shown in Figure 8.3, a plot of nitrate versus phosphate for seawater taken from all depths through all the ocean basins has a slope close to 16 1. Why do both plankton and seawater have an N-to-P ratio of 16 1 Does the ratio in seawater determine the ratio in the plankton or vice versa Current thinking is that the N-to-P ratio of seawater reflects a quasi steady state that has been established and stabilized by the collective impacts of several biological processes controlled by marine plankton. 

Trace metals are resolubilized from the biogenic hard and soft parts in much the same way as the macronutrients. Thus, the depth profiles of the trace metals with high EFs tend to be similar in shape to those of the nutrients. Efforts have been made to develop a Redfield-Richards type ratio far the trace metals in marine plankton. Surprisingly, field and lab work suggests that a relatively constant composition can be defined for whole... 

The unique chemical composition of cosmogenous debris has provided some insight into why approximately 70% of the species of organisms on Earth were driven extinct over a relatively short time interval approximately 66 million years ago. Evidence for this mass extinction has been observed in marine sediments throughout all the ocean basins. In a contemporaneous layer deposited at the end of the Cretaceous period, the hard parts of many species of marine plankton abruptly vanished from the sedimentary record. This sedimentary layer is also characterized by a large enrichment in the rare element iridium. 

The products of chemical weathering, Ca, H4Si04, and 2HCOj, are transported by river runoff into the ocean, where they are then available to be returned to biogenic form by marine plankton. (Marine plankton have an enzyme, carbonic anhydrase, that converts bicarbonate to CO2.)... 

Redlield-Richards Ratio The average molar elemental ratio of C to N to P (106 16 1) that is present in the marine plankton as sampled by a net tow. 

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