Plankton Community Respiration and Particulate Organic Carbon in the Kuroshio East of Taiwan
Biological organic carbon production and consumption play a fundamental role in the understanding of organic carbon cycling in oceans. However, studies on them in the Kuroshio, the western boundary current in the North Pacific Ocean, are scarce. To better understand the variations of plankton commun...
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MDPI AG
2022-10-01
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author | Chung-Chi Chen Pei-Jie Meng Chih-hao Hsieh Sen Jan |
author_facet | Chung-Chi Chen Pei-Jie Meng Chih-hao Hsieh Sen Jan |
author_sort | Chung-Chi Chen |
collection | DOAJ |
description | Biological organic carbon production and consumption play a fundamental role in the understanding of organic carbon cycling in oceans. However, studies on them in the Kuroshio, the western boundary current in the North Pacific Ocean, are scarce. To better understand the variations of plankton community respiration (CR) and particulate organic carbon (POC), eight cruises. which covered four seasons over a 2-year period, were surveyed across the Kuroshio at the KTV1 transect east of Taiwan. Spatially, a coastal uplift of isotherms (i.e., onshore lifting and offshore deepening) was observed along the KTV1 transect. During the uplift, the cold and nutrient-rich deep waters shoal to shallow water and enhance phytoplankton growth, resulting in higher values of phytoplankton, POC, and plankton CR on the onshore side. In this study, phytoplankton was dominated by picophytoplankton including <i>Prochlorococcus</i>, <i>Synechococcus</i>, and picoeukaryotes. Plankton CR was low, and its mean depth-normalized integrated rate (the upper 100 m water depth) ranged from 7.07 to 22.27 mg C m<sup>−3</sup> d<sup>−1</sup>, to which the picophytoplankton and heterotrophic bacteria contributed the most. The mean depth-normalized integrated value of POC ranged from 12.7 to 21.6 μg C L<sup>−1</sup>. POC is mainly associated with phytoplankton biomass with a mean carbon ratio of chlorophyll <i>a</i>/POC ≈ 1.03. All results suggest that plankton CR and POC variations may be associated with picoplankton dynamics in the Kuroshio. |
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last_indexed | 2024-03-09T18:44:08Z |
publishDate | 2022-10-01 |
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spelling | doaj.art-70cb590b098b48abab7865f684ec22852023-11-24T06:25:03ZengMDPI AGPlants2223-77472022-10-011121290910.3390/plants11212909Plankton Community Respiration and Particulate Organic Carbon in the Kuroshio East of TaiwanChung-Chi Chen0Pei-Jie Meng1Chih-hao Hsieh2Sen Jan3Department of Life Science, National Taiwan Normal University, 88, Sec. 4, Ting-Chou Road, Taipei 11677, TaiwanGraduate Institute of Marine Biology, National Dong Hwa University, Checheng, Pingtung 94450, TaiwanInstitute of Oceanography, National Taiwan University, Taipei 10617, TaiwanInstitute of Oceanography, National Taiwan University, Taipei 10617, TaiwanBiological organic carbon production and consumption play a fundamental role in the understanding of organic carbon cycling in oceans. However, studies on them in the Kuroshio, the western boundary current in the North Pacific Ocean, are scarce. To better understand the variations of plankton community respiration (CR) and particulate organic carbon (POC), eight cruises. which covered four seasons over a 2-year period, were surveyed across the Kuroshio at the KTV1 transect east of Taiwan. Spatially, a coastal uplift of isotherms (i.e., onshore lifting and offshore deepening) was observed along the KTV1 transect. During the uplift, the cold and nutrient-rich deep waters shoal to shallow water and enhance phytoplankton growth, resulting in higher values of phytoplankton, POC, and plankton CR on the onshore side. In this study, phytoplankton was dominated by picophytoplankton including <i>Prochlorococcus</i>, <i>Synechococcus</i>, and picoeukaryotes. Plankton CR was low, and its mean depth-normalized integrated rate (the upper 100 m water depth) ranged from 7.07 to 22.27 mg C m<sup>−3</sup> d<sup>−1</sup>, to which the picophytoplankton and heterotrophic bacteria contributed the most. The mean depth-normalized integrated value of POC ranged from 12.7 to 21.6 μg C L<sup>−1</sup>. POC is mainly associated with phytoplankton biomass with a mean carbon ratio of chlorophyll <i>a</i>/POC ≈ 1.03. All results suggest that plankton CR and POC variations may be associated with picoplankton dynamics in the Kuroshio.https://www.mdpi.com/2223-7747/11/21/2909dissolved inorganic nutrientsparticulate organic carbonpicoeukaryotespicoplanktonplankton community respiration<i>Prochlorococcus</i> |
spellingShingle | Chung-Chi Chen Pei-Jie Meng Chih-hao Hsieh Sen Jan Plankton Community Respiration and Particulate Organic Carbon in the Kuroshio East of Taiwan Plants dissolved inorganic nutrients particulate organic carbon picoeukaryotes picoplankton plankton community respiration <i>Prochlorococcus</i> |
title | Plankton Community Respiration and Particulate Organic Carbon in the Kuroshio East of Taiwan |
title_full | Plankton Community Respiration and Particulate Organic Carbon in the Kuroshio East of Taiwan |
title_fullStr | Plankton Community Respiration and Particulate Organic Carbon in the Kuroshio East of Taiwan |
title_full_unstemmed | Plankton Community Respiration and Particulate Organic Carbon in the Kuroshio East of Taiwan |
title_short | Plankton Community Respiration and Particulate Organic Carbon in the Kuroshio East of Taiwan |
title_sort | plankton community respiration and particulate organic carbon in the kuroshio east of taiwan |
topic | dissolved inorganic nutrients particulate organic carbon picoeukaryotes picoplankton plankton community respiration <i>Prochlorococcus</i> |
url | https://www.mdpi.com/2223-7747/11/21/2909 |
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