Unveiling the enigma of refractory carbon in the ocean

Jiao, Nianzhi; Cai, Ruanhong; Zheng, Qiang; Tang, Kai; Liu, Jihua; Jiao, Fanglue; Wallace, Douglas W.R.; Chen, Feng; Li, Chao; Amann, Rudolf; Benner, Ronald; Azam, Farooq

doi:10.1093/nsr/nwy020

Cited by 92 publications

(53 citation statements)

References 33 publications

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“…With the FT-ICR-MS analysis, the overall properties of the residual SDOM indicate that the SDOM was microbially modified to a higher unsaturated state and likely containing more aromatic rings in molecules, these properties of residue SDOM are similar to the properties of deep-sea RDOM (Catalá et al, 2015;Flerus et al, 2012;Hertkorn et al, 2013;Lechtenfeld et al, 2014;Li et al, 2019;Medeiros et al, 2015). The chemical changes of DOM properties (Table 1) combined with the succession of microbial community (Figure 3b) observed in our study might reflect the generation of RDOM via the microbial carbon pump (Jiao et al, 2010), which proposes that the microbial successive processing on labile DOM generates long-lived RDOM in the water column (Jiao et al, 2018;Jiao et al, 2014). Our SDOM incubation experiment suggests that the microbial mediated RDOM may contribute to the autochthonous recalcitrant carbon in coastal environments (Asmala et al, 2018), which could be subjected to further cycling through biotic and abiotic processes in the ocean.…”

Section: Implications For the Resuspension Of Sdom Into The Overlyingsupporting

confidence: 75%

“…Considering the shifts in bacterial community composition, and the viral behavior within the first 7 days of this incubation, we suggest that viral-bacterial dynamics would play a role in promoting bacterial community succession, which subsequently propels DOM transformation. Combined this with the molecular composition changes of the SDOM, our experiment demonstrated that successive processing of DOM by microbes is essential for the transformation of labile organics into RDOM (Jiao et al, 2018;Lechtenfeld et al, 2014;Osterholz et al, 2015).…”

Section: Journal Of Geophysical Research: Biogeosciencesmentioning

confidence: 72%

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Microbial Processing of Sediment‐Derived Dissolved Organic Matter: Implications for Its Subsequent Biogeochemical Cycling in Overlying Seawater

et al. 2019

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Coastal sediments contain a large amount of dissolved organic matter (DOM), which can be mobilized into the overlying water by natural and anthropogenic activities. The bioavailability and subsequent biogeochemical effects of this sediment-derived DOM are unclear. To investigate those, we collected a sediment pore-water DOM (SDOM) sample and its overlying seawater to conduct a bioassay experiment, which allowed tracking of both short-term and long-term microbial processes in the context of DOM transformations. Short-term incubation results show that the SDOM extract supported the growth of specific taxa. The microbial community composition changed dramatically and an approximately 50% of SDOM-derived carbon was consumed within the first 2 days. Viruses likely played a role in promoting bacterial community succession, further enhancing transformation of this SDOM. Long-term incubation results show that labile DOM was gradually consumed, while approximately 16% of the initial SDOM appeared to be recalcitrant to microbial utilization and remained at the end (after 110 days) of the incubation experiment. Despite the short-term drastic changes in microbial community composition, a highly diverse microbial community is similar to the control at the end of the incubation. It is suggested here that resuspension of coastal sediments weakens their role as a net sink of carbon, with most of the mobilized SDOM transformed by successive microbial communities in the overlying seawater and the remaining recalcitrant organic material becoming part of the long-lived DOM pool. Thus, the bioavailability of the coastal SDOM might influence the carbon budget in coastal oceans.

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Section: Implications For the Resuspension Of Sdom Into The Overlyingsupporting

confidence: 75%

Section: Journal Of Geophysical Research: Biogeosciencesmentioning

confidence: 72%

Microbial Processing of Sediment‐Derived Dissolved Organic Matter: Implications for Its Subsequent Biogeochemical Cycling in Overlying Seawater

et al. 2019

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“…Deep-ocean DOS is thought mainly to originate from biological processes in the upper ocean and from organic matter transported from the upper ocean to the deep ocean and sediments; DOS in the deep ocean may persist for thousands of years (Koch et al, 2017). The most important biologically mediated processes regulating the long term storage of organic matter in the ocean are the biological carbon pump (Ducklow et al, 2001) and the microbial carbon pump (Jiao et al, 2010(Jiao et al, , 2014(Jiao et al, , 2018. After the long-term incubation (110 days) of a microbial community in natural seawater, more sulfur metabolites may be produced, suggesting that biotic process lead to the formation of refractory compounds (Figure 5A) (Cai et al, 2019).…”

Section: Revealing Organosulfur Cycling In the Dark Ocean And Sedimentmentioning

confidence: 99%

Chemical Diversity and Biochemical Transformation of Biogenic Organic Sulfur in the Ocean

Tang

2020

Front. Mar. Sci.

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Organic sulfur compounds are not only essential for organismal survival but also indispensable for the sulfur cycle. Over the past few decades, dimethylsulfoniopropionate (DMSP) and dimethyl sulfide (DMS) cycling in the upper ocean have been well characterized from the genetic to the ecosystem level. Recent advances in the study of marine sulfonate transformation have indicated that phytoplankton and microbes play key roles in oceanic sulfur and carbon fluxes. This review provides biochemical details of the major sulfur metabolites, and presents an interlinked reaction network with genetic information on the microbial transformation and mineralization of sulfur compounds. This review also discusses future prospects for the discovery and characterization of novel substrates and enzymes involved in organosulfur cycling, as well as for investigations of deep sea and sedimentary organic sulfur.

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“…In addition, if the majority of deep oceanic DOC is RDOC c , deep ocean Δ 14 C calculated from the mass balance model would be difficult to reconcile with its observation (Wilson and Arndt, 2017). Most recently, an experimental study using large volume water column (> 100 tons) shows that the microbial transformation of LDOC to RDOC in a standing ecosystem can be completed in a very short time (a few months) (Jiao et al, 2018), providing further evidence for the dominance of RDOC t .…”

Section: The Majority Of Deep Oceanic Doc Is Rdoc Tmentioning

confidence: 99%

Contribution of structural recalcitrance to the formation of the deep oceanic dissolved organic carbon reservoir

Wang

Luo

Polimene

et al. 2018

Environ Microbiol Rep

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Summary The origin of the recalcitrant dissolved organic carbon (RDOC) reservoir in the deep ocean remains enigmatic. The structural recalcitrance hypothesis suggests that RDOC is formed by molecules that are chemically resistant to bacterial degradation. The dilution hypothesis claims that RDOC is formed from a large diversity of labile molecules that escape bacterial utilization due to their low concentrations, termed as RDOCc. To evaluate the relative contributions of these two mechanisms in determining the long‐term persistence of RDOC, we model the dynamics of both structurally recalcitrant DOC and RDOCc based on previously published data that describes deep oceanic DOC degradation experiments. Our results demonstrate that the majority of DOC (84.5 ± 2.2%) in the deep ocean is structurally recalcitrant. The intrinsically labile DOC (i.e., labile DOC that rapidly consumed and RDOCc) accounts for a relatively small proportion and is consumed rapidly in the incubation experiments, in which 47.8 ± 3.2% of labile DOC and 21.9 ± 4.6% of RDOCc are consumed in 40 days. Our results suggest that the recalcitrance of RDOC is largely related to its chemical properties, whereas dilution plays a minor role in determining the persistence of deep‐ocean DOC.

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Unveiling the enigma of refractory carbon in the ocean

Cited by 92 publications

References 33 publications

Microbial Processing of Sediment‐Derived Dissolved Organic Matter: Implications for Its Subsequent Biogeochemical Cycling in Overlying Seawater

Microbial Processing of Sediment‐Derived Dissolved Organic Matter: Implications for Its Subsequent Biogeochemical Cycling in Overlying Seawater

Chemical Diversity and Biochemical Transformation of Biogenic Organic Sulfur in the Ocean

Contribution of structural recalcitrance to the formation of the deep oceanic dissolved organic carbon reservoir

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