References

Biogeosciences

1726-4189

Copernicus Publications

Göttingen, Germany

10.5194/bg-11-1599-2014

Phosphate supply explains variation in nucleic acid allocation but not C : P stoichiometry in the western North Atlantic

Zimmerman

A. E.

https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6709-8274

¹ ³ Martiny

A. C.

https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2829-4314

¹ ² Lomas

M. W.

⁴ Allison

S. D.

https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4629-7842

¹ ²

Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of California Irvine, Irvine, CA 92697-2525, USA

Department of Earth System Science, University of California Irvine, Irvine, CA 92697-3100, USA

Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute, Moss Landing, CA 95039, USA

Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences, East Boothbay, ME 04544, USA

26 03 2014

11 6 1599 1611

2014

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License. To view a copy of this licence, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

This article is available from https://bg.copernicus.org/articles/11/1599/2014/bg-11-1599-2014.html

The full text article is available as a PDF file from https://bg.copernicus.org/articles/11/1599/2014/bg-11-1599-2014.pdf

Marine microbial communities mediate many biogeochemical transformations in the ocean. Consequently, processes such as primary production and carbon (C) export are linked to nutrient regeneration and are influenced by the resource demand and elemental composition of marine microbial biomass. Laboratory studies have demonstrated that differential partitioning of element resources to various cellular components can directly influence overall cellular elemental ratios, especially with respect to growth machinery (i.e., ribosomal RNA) and phosphorus (P) allocation. To investigate whether allocation to RNA is related to biomass P content and overall C : P biomass composition in the open ocean, we characterized patterns of P allocation and C : P elemental ratios along an environmental gradient of phosphate supply in the North Atlantic subtropical gyre (NASG) from 35.67° N, 64.17° W to 22.676° N, 65.526° W. Because the NASG is characterized as a P-stressed ecosystem, we hypothesized that biochemical allocation would reflect sensitivity to bioavailable phosphate, such that greater phosphate supply would result in increased allocation toward P-rich RNA for growth. We predicted these changes in allocation would also result in lower C : P ratios with increased phosphate supply. However, bulk C : P ratios were decoupled from allocation to nucleic acids and did not appear to vary systematically across a phosphate supply gradient of 2.2–14.7 μmol m−2 d−1. Overall, we found that C : P ratios ranged from 188 to 306 along the transect, and RNA represented only 6–12% of total particulate P, whereas DNA represented 11–19%. We did find that allocation to RNA was positively correlated with phosphate supply rate, suggesting a consistent physiological response in biochemical allocation to resource supply within the whole community. These results suggest that community composition and/or nonnucleic acid P pools may influence ecosystem-scale variation in C : P stoichiometry more than nucleic acid allocation or P supply in diverse marine microbial communities.

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