Organic Matter Metabolism in a Coastal Ocean Ecosystem
Patricia
Matrai, Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences, pmatrai@bigelow.org
(Presenting)
Michael
Sieracki, Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences, msieracki@bigelow.org
Nicole
Poulton, Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences, npoulton@bigelow.org
Carlton
Rauschenberg, Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences, carlton@bigelow.org
We consider here the balance between production and consumption of fixed organic matter in the coastal ocean. The global ocean is generally considered to be in overall balance between these two fluxes in the general carbon cycle models. These fluxes are very large components of the carbon cycle, however, and small imbalances can have large impacts on the net flux of CO2 between the ocean and atmosphere. We have measured system productivity and respiration in the Kennebec River and its plume into the Gulf of Maine, a coastal shelf sea, over two seasonal cycles in order to establish the variability and magnitude of the organic matter metabolism of this system. We provide seasonal and annual estimates of system production and respiration in and out of the river plume and in the adjacent Gulf of Maine waters. We have re-evaluated published empirical relationships between bacterial abundance, respiration and production as well as with temperature, chlorophyll and primary production with a significantly enhanced compilation of field data, with the goal of remotely estimating ocean respiration. We have tested such algorithms in the coastal waters of the Gulf of Maine, using the remotely sensed parameters of temperature, chlorophyll, ocean color, and primary production. We discuss the usefulness of this approach to estimate respiration over larger temporal and spatial scales than is possible from field studies.
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