References

Biogeosciences

1726-4189

Copernicus Publications

Göttingen, Germany

10.5194/bg-11-3695-2014

Effect of enhanced pCO2 levels on the production of dissolved organic carbon and transparent exopolymer particles in short-term bioassay experiments

MacGilchrist

G. A.

³ ¹ Shi

¹ Tyrrell

¹ Richier

¹ Moore

C. M.

¹ Dumousseaud

¹ Achterberg

E. P.

² ¹

Ocean and Earth Science, National Oceanography Centre, Southampton, University of Southampton, Southampton, UK

GEOMAR, Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research, Kiel, Germany

now at: Department of Earth Sciences, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK

10 07 2014

11 13 3695 3706

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/11/3695/2014/bg-11-3695-2014.html

The full text article is available as a PDF file from https://bg.copernicus.org/articles/11/3695/2014/bg-11-3695-2014.pdf

It has been proposed that increasing levels of pCO2 in the surface ocean will lead to more partitioning of the organic carbon fixed by marine primary production into the dissolved rather than the particulate fraction. This process may result in enhanced accumulation of dissolved organic carbon (DOC) in the surface ocean and/or concurrent accumulation of transparent exopolymer particles (TEPs), with important implications for the functioning of the marine carbon cycle. We investigated this in shipboard bioassay experiments that considered the effect of four different pCO2 scenarios (ambient, 550, 750 and 1000 μatm) on unamended natural phytoplankton communities from a range of locations in the northwest European shelf seas. The environmental settings, in terms of nutrient availability, phytoplankton community structure and growth conditions, varied considerably between locations. We did not observe any strong or consistent effect of pCO2 on DOC production. There was a significant but highly variable effect of pCO2 on the production of TEPs. In three of the five experiments, variation of TEP production between pCO2 treatments was caused by the effect of pCO2 on phytoplankton growth rather than a direct effect on TEP production. In one of the five experiments, there was evidence of enhanced TEP production at high pCO2 (twice as much production over the 96 h incubation period in the 750 μatm treatment compared with the ambient treatment) independent of indirect effects, as hypothesised by previous studies. Our results suggest that the environmental setting of experiments (community structure, nutrient availability and occurrence of phytoplankton growth) is a key factor determining the TEP response to pCO2 perturbations.

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