Zooplankton fecal pellets

Carder KI, Steward RG, Betzer BR (1982) In situ holographic of the size and settling rates of oceanic particles. Journal of Geophysical Research 87 5681-5685 Cherry RD, Higgo JJW, Fowler SW (1978) Zooplankton fecal pellets and element residence times in the ocean. Nature 274 246-248... 

There are, however, some problems in the direct application of such a ratio. First, relative high abundances of A7-sterols have been reported in Lake Kinneret, a normal marine salinity environment (39). Hence, A -sterols are obviously not restricted to organisms living in hypersaline environments. The relative abundance of A7- (and a8 14)-) sterols in hypersaline environments may be due to the absence of grazing zooplankton in these environments. In normal marine salinity environments A7- and A8(14)-sterols are selectively metabolised in the guts of zooplankton resulting in a selective preservation of A5-sterols in zooplankton fecal pellets, which are transported rapidly to the sediment (40,41). 

Prahl, F.G., and Carpenter, R. (1979) The role of zooplankton fecal pellets in the sedimentation of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in Dabob Bay, Washington. Geochim. Cosmochim. Acta 44, 1967-1976. 

Smith WO, Jr. Codispoti LA, Nelson DM, Manley T, Buskey EJ, Niebauer HJ, Cota GF (1991) Importance of Phaeocystis blooms in the high-latitude ocean carbon cycle. Nature 352 514-516 Sukhanova IN, Flint MV (2001) Phaeocystis pouchetii at the Eastern Bering Sea Shelf. Oceanology 41 75-85 Turner JT (2002) Zooplankton fecal pellets, marine snow and sinking phytoplankton blooms. Aquat Microb Ecol 27 57-102... 

Table 26.3 Composition of zooplankton fecal pellets continued)...

Downs,. N., and Lorenzen, C. J. (1985). Carbon Pheopigment ratios of zooplankton fecal pellets as an index of herbivorous feeding. Limnol. Oceanogr. 30, 1024-1036. 

Turner J. T. (2002) Zooplankton fecal pellets, marine snow and sinking phytoplankton blooms. Aquat Microbiol. Ecol. 27, 57-102. 

Following death, some of the coccolith CaCOs dissolves in the surface waters inhabited by coccolithophores, with the rest of the coccolith CaCOs sinking out of the surface waters within zooplankton fecal pellets or marine snow aggregates. The exact means by which some coccoliths are dissolved in near-surface waters are unclear (dissolution within zooplankton guts may be important), but regardless of mechanisms several lines of evidence suggest that near-surface dissolution does occur. The size of... 

In this chapter, mechanisms of particle removal are limited to coagulation and sedimentation. Predictions of size distributions are obtained that are in reasonable agreement with measured size distributions from oceanic waters and digested sewage sludge. Sensitivity of the predictions to fluid turbulence and fluid density presents a plausible explanation for zones of higher particle concentration observed in the oceanic water column. The analysis does not include zooplankton fecal pellet production, particle breakup, or dissolution, nor does it directly incorporate biological productivity. 

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