Salp blooms drive strong increases in passive carbon export in the Southern Ocean

Décima, Moira; Stukel, Michael R.; Nodder, Scott D.; Gutiérrez‐Rodríguez, Andres; Selph, Karen E.; Santos, Adriana Lopes dos; Safi, Karl; Kelly, Thomas B; Deans, Fenella; Morales, Sergio E.; Baltar, Federico; Latasa, Mikel; Gorbunov, Maxim Y.; Pinkerton, Matt

doi:10.1038/s41467-022-35204-6

Cited by 29 publications

(22 citation statements)

References 97 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Our results also align with a recent study from the Sargasso Sea showing that zooplankton size did not correlate with export flux (Perhirin et al, 2024). That study also showed that opacity was an important zooplankton trait that correlated strongly with export flux, and although we could not quantify opacity from our dataset, several of our highest export efficiency locations (from the SalpPOOP cruise, Décima et al, 2023) were measured within a bloom of highly transparent pelagic tunicates. We further note that our sinking particle measurements do not include the potential impact of zooplankton carcasses, which can be substantial in some regions (Frangoulis et al, 2011;Halfter et al, 2022;Smith et al, 2014) and would covary with abundance of large taxa.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 91%

Relationships Between Plankton Size Spectra, Net Primary Production, and the Biological Carbon Pump

Stukel,

Décima,

Kelly

et al. 2024

Global Biogeochemical Cycles

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Photosynthesis in the surface ocean and subsequent export of a fraction of this fixed carbon leads to carbon dioxide sequestration in the deep ocean. Ecological relationships among plankton functional groups and theoretical relationships between particle size and sinking rate suggest that carbon export from the euphotic zone is more efficient when communities are dominated by large organisms. However, this hypothesis has never been tested against measured size spectra spanning the >5 orders of magnitude found in plankton communities. Using data from five ocean regions (California Current Ecosystem, North Pacific subtropical gyre, Costa Rica Dome, Gulf of Mexico, and Southern Ocean subtropical front), we quantified carbon‐based plankton size spectra from heterotrophic bacteria to metazoan zooplankton (size class cutoffs varied slightly between regions) and their relationship to net primary production and sinking particle flux. Slopes of the normalized biomass size spectra (NBSS) varied from −1.6 to −1.2 (median slope of −1.4 equates to large 1–10 mm organisms having a biomass equal to only 7.6% of the biomass in small 1–10 μm organisms). Net primary production was positively correlated with the NBSS slope, with a particularly strong relationship in the microbial portion of the size spectra. While organic carbon export co‐varied with NBSS slope, we found only weak evidence that export efficiency is related to plankton community size spectra. Multi‐variate statistical analysis suggested that properties of the NBSS added no explanatory power over chlorophyll, primary production, and temperature. Rather, the results suggest that both plankton size spectra and carbon export increase with increasing system productivity.

show abstract

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 91%

Relationships Between Plankton Size Spectra, Net Primary Production, and the Biological Carbon Pump

Stukel,

Décima,

Kelly

et al. 2024

Global Biogeochemical Cycles

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Unknown particles matching this description were also described by both Madin and Purcell (1992) and Ahmad-Ishak et al (personal communication) and can be seen in the SEM images taken by Caron et al (1989) although they were not discussed. Due to their size and generally spherical shape, we assume that the majority of these particles were nanophytoplankton such as prasinophytes, prymnesiophytes, or pelagophytes for which characteristic features such as flagella had been digested or broken off as these groups had a high abundance and contribution to phytoplankton community biomass (Décima et al 2023). It is, however, likely that this morphological categorization includes particles of various origins.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Samples were collected over Aotearoa New Zealand’s Chatham Rise during October 21 - November 21 2018 as part of the Salp Particle Export and Ocean Production (SalpPOOP) study, which was designed to investigate how salps affect the ecology and biogeochemistry of the region (Décima et al 2023). The Chatham Rise is notable because it sits within the Subtropical Front of the southwest Pacific, which defines the boundary between warm, salty and low-nitrate subtropical waters and cold, fresh, nitrate-rich, and iron-poor subantarctic waters (Zentara and Kamykowski 1981; Heath 1985; Sokolov & Rintoul 2009;).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Prey size spectra and predator to prey size ratios of southern ocean salps

Fender

Décima

Gutiérrez‐Rodríguez

et al. 2022

Preprint

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

While the importance of salp grazing has become increasingly apparent in shaping their local ecosystems, little is known about the size ranges of their prey in the field. This study investigated the feeding habits of 7 different species of salp of both solitary and aggregate life stages representing a variety of sizes across subtropical and subantarctic waters east of New Zealand. Scanning electron microscopy was used to examine the gut contents of 58 salps, which were then compared to water column communities sampled via epifluorescence microscopy, FlowCam, and flow cytometry. While most of the gut size spectra and taxonomy resembled ambient waters, substantial differences were found amongst some co-occurring species, such as increased retention of submicron bacteria by Thalia democratica. We find that even for such salps capable of feeding on bacteria efficiently, the majority of gut biomass was still made up by nanoplankton and small microplankton. Larger particles were much rarer in the guts than in the water column, potentially suggesting an upper size-threshold in addition to the lower size-threshold that has been the focus of much previous work. Salp carbon-weighted predator to prey size ratios were variable, with the majority falling between 1000:1 and 10000:1 depending largely on the size of the salp. Taken together our results indicate that despite being able to feed on submicron particles, picoplankton are relatively unimportant to the energetics of most salps in this region compared to nanoplankton such as small dinoflagellates and diatoms.

show abstract

“…"Jelly-falls", defined as the sinking of gelatinous zooplankton carcasses in the water column following a swarming event, can result in the export of huge amounts of organic matter to the seafloor (Lebrato et al, 2012(Lebrato et al, , 2019Luo et al, 2020;Sweetman et al, 2014;Sweetman & Chapman, 2015). In particular, recent studies suggest that FFGM may play a central role in deep ocean carbon fluxes (Clerc, Bopp, Benedetti, et al, 2023;Décima et al, 2023;Henschke et al, 2016;Luo et al, 2022;Steinberg et al, 2023). Their role in the carbon cycle in a changing climate remains unknown.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Filter‐feeding gelatinous macrozooplankton response to climate change and implications for benthic food supply and global carbon cycle

Clerc,

Aumont,

Bopp

2023

Global Change Biology

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

It is often suggested that gelatinous zooplankton may benefit from anthropogenic pressures of all kinds and in particular from climate change. Large pelagic tunicates, for example, are likely to be favored over other types of macrozooplankton due to their filter‐feeding mode, which gives them access to small preys thought to be less affected by climate change than larger preys. In this study, we provide model‐based estimate of potential community changes in macrozooplankton composition and estimate for the first time their effects on benthic food supply and on the ocean carbon cycle under two 21st‐century climate‐change scenarios. Forced with output from an Earth System Model climate projections, our ocean biogeochemical model simulates a large reduction in macrozooplankton biomass in response to anthropogenic climate change, but shows that gelatinous macrozooplankton are less affected than nongelatinous macrozooplankton, with global biomass declines estimated at −2.8% and −3.5%, respectively, for every 1°C of warming. The inclusion of gelatinous macrozooplankon in our ocean biogeochemical model has a limited effect on anthropogenic carbon uptake in the 21st century, but impacts the projected decline in particulate organic matter fluxes in the deep ocean. In subtropical oligotrophic gyres, where gelatinous zooplankton dominate macrozooplankton, the decline in the amount of organic matter reaching the seafloor is reduced by a factor of 2 when gelatinous macrozooplankton are considered (−17.5% vs. −29.7% when gelatinous macrozooplankton are not considered, all for 2100 under RCP8.5). The shift to gelatinous macrozooplankton in the future ocean therefore buffers the decline in deep carbon fluxes and should be taken into account when assessing potential changes in deep carbon storage and the risks that deep ecosystems may face when confronted with a decline in their food source.

show abstract

Salp blooms drive strong increases in passive carbon export in the Southern Ocean

Cited by 29 publications

References 97 publications

Relationships Between Plankton Size Spectra, Net Primary Production, and the Biological Carbon Pump

Relationships Between Plankton Size Spectra, Net Primary Production, and the Biological Carbon Pump

Prey size spectra and predator to prey size ratios of southern ocean salps

Filter‐feeding gelatinous macrozooplankton response to climate change and implications for benthic food supply and global carbon cycle

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About