UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHAMPTON FACULTY OF SCIENCE School of Ocean and Earth Science Latitudinal Variation in Plankton Size Spectra along the Atlantic Ocean By Elena San Martin Thesis for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy September 2005 Graduate School of the Southampton Oceanography Centre This PhD dissertation by Elena San Martin has been produced under the supervision of the following persons Supervisor/s Dr. Roger Harris, Dr. Xabier Irigoien, Prof. Patrick Holligan Chair of Advisory Panel Dr. Richard Lampitt Member/s of Advisory Panel UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHAMPTON FACULTY OF SCIENCE SCHOOL OF OCEAN & EARTH SCIENCE Doctor of Philosophy ABSTRACT LATITUDINAL VARIATION IN PLANKTON SIZE SPECTRA ALONG THE ATLANTIC OCEAN by Elena San Martin Abundance-size distributions of organisms within a community reflect fundamental properties underlying population dynamics. These include characteristics such as predator to prey biomass ratios, given the relationships that exist between body mass and metabolic activity, and between body mass and the ecological regulation of population density. In this way, plankton size has an important role in structuring the rates and pathways of material transfer in the marine pelagic food web, and consequently the oceanic carbon cycle. The transfer of energy between trophic levels can be inferred from regular patterns in population size structure, where plots of abundance within size classes, also known as plankton size spectra, typically show a power-law dependence on size. Metabolic theory, based on such size relations, has provided the basis for using an allometric approach to investigate the metabolic balance of the Atlantic Ocean and to identify the main drivers of trophic status in the plankton community. Samples were collected during three Atlantic Meridional Transect (AMT) cruises with further samples from a Marine Productivity (MarProd) cruise in the Irminger Sea. Three image analysis instruments were used to obtain plankton size spectra in the pico- to mesozooplankton size range. Data from a decadal time series at a coastal station off Plymouth, UK additionally enabled seasonal trends in plankton size spectra to be interpreted. Allometric relationships were also derived from physiological rates of individual plankton and scaled from organisms to ecosystems using community size structure data that were obtained from six earlier AMT cruises. Contrary to common perception, the transfer efficiency between phytoplankton and mesozooplankton in the Atlantic was not related to ecosystem productivity in oceanic and coastal systems. The flow of carbon up the food web was controlled by how quickly the consumers are able to respond to a resource pulse. These findings have fundamental implications for upper ocean carbon flux and suggest that global carbon flux models should reconsider the differences in carbon transfer efficiency between productive and oligotrophic areas of the world’s ocean. The allometric models of microbial community respiration and production provide a complementary method for understanding the metabolic balance of the upper ocean. Respiration exceeded photosynthesis in large areas of the Atlantic Ocean, suggesting that planktonic communities act as potential net sources of CO2. Largesized phytoplankton are suggested as the main drivers of the balance between net autotrophy and heterotrophy. CONTENTS CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1 1.1 Atlantic Meridional Transect (AMT) Programme 3 1.2 Community size structure 5 1.2.1 Why size matters 5 1.2.2 Scaling in biology 5 Energetic equivalence rule 7 1.2.3 Community size spectra 8 Theory of plankton size spectra 9 Limitations to size spectra theory 12 1.2.4 Factors shaping plankton size spectra 12 Ecosystem stability 13 Pelagic food web 14 Flux of organic matter 16 Phytoplankton productivity 18 Metabolic balance in the oceans 19 Mesozooplankton of the Atlantic Ocean 19 1.3 Hypothesis and objectives 21 CHAPTER 2: METHODS 23 2.1 Sample collection 23 2.1.1 AMT cruise programme 23 2.1.2 CTD sampling 25 2.1.3 Net sampling 26 2.2 Sample analysis 26 2.2.1 Carbon and Nitrogen analysis 26 2.2.2 Size structure analysis 27 Nanoplankton and microplankton 28 Mesozooplankton 30 Direct measurements versus estimates of carbon biomass 31 Picoplankton 32 2.2.3 Marine Productivity research programme 33 2.3 Data processing 33 2.3.1 L4 plankton monitoring programme 33 2.3.2 Quantification of plankton size structure 35 i. Size classes 35 ii. Normalised biomass-size spectra 35 iii. Mean organism size 37 2.4 Scaling the metabolic balance of the oceans 38 2.4.1 Error propagation 40 CHAPTER 3: LATITUDINAL VARIATION IN PLANKTON SIZE 41 SPECTRA ALONG THE ATLANTIC 3.1 Introduction 41 3.1.1 Atlantic Ocean Circulation 41 3.1.2 Oceanic provinces 42 3.2 Large scale changes in community size structure 46 3.2.1 Vertical structure 46 Nano- to microplankton NB-S spectra 46 3.2.2 Latitudinal variation 50 Community NB-S spectra 50 Mesozooplankton size structure 54 Total biomass and abundance 56 3.3 Comparison between cruises 60 3.3.1 AMT 12 and 14 60 3.3.2 AMT 13 61 Seasonal/spatial variability 61 3.4 Discussion 62 3.4.1 Latitude 62 3.4.2 Vertical structure 65 3.4.3 Seasonality 66 3.5 Conclusions 67 CHAPTER 4: CAN THE SLOPE OF A PLANKTON SIZE SPECTRUM 68 BE USED AS AN INDICATOR OF CARBON FLUX? 4.1 Introduction 68 4.1.1. Ocean carbon cycle 68 4.1.2 Trophic transfer efficiency 69 4.2 Large scale spatial variability 71 4.2.1 Latitudinal distributions of temperature 72 4.2.2 Spatial structure of nitrate 74 4.2.3 Chlorophyll a 76 4.3 Factors influencing plankton size spectra 78 4.3.1 Temperature 78 4.3.2 Nutrients 79 4.4 Consumer versus resource control of the pelagic community 80 4.4.1 Chlorophyll a 80 4.4.2 Primary Production 81 4.4.3 Community interactions 82 4.5 Other carbon flux descriptors 87 4.5.1 Metabolic balance 87 4.5.2 Thorium estimates of C export 87 4.6 Discussion 89 4.6.1 Environment 89 Temperature 89 Nutrients 89 4.6.2 Turnover of material 90 4.6.3 Trophic status 90 4.6.4 Carbon export 91 4.6.5 Trophic transfer efficiency 91 4.6.6 Some limitations to the size spectra approach 94 4.7 Conclusions 95 CHAPTER 5: TEMPORAL VARIABILITY OF PLANKTON SIZE 96 SPECTRA 5.1 Introduction 96 5.1.1 The continental shelf 96 5.2 Community structure 98 5.2.1 Microbial community 98 5.2.2 Mesozooplankton community 100 5.3 Plankton size spectra 101 5.3.1 Average size spectrum 102 5.3.2 Seasonality 104 Across trophic levels 104 Within trophic levels 107 5.3.3 Interannual variability 108 5.4 Discussion 110 5.4.1 Between trophic levels 110 5.4.2 Within trophic levels 113 5.5 Conclusions 115 CHAPTER 6: SCALING THE METABOLIC BALANCE IN THE 116 OCEANS 6.1 Introduction 116 6.1.1 Allometry 116 6.1.2 Abundance-size structure 117 6.2 Empirical allometric models 120 6.2.1 Respiration 120 6.2.2 Primary production 121 6.3 Comparison between allometric estimates with traditional in 122 situ measurements 6.3.1 Respiration 124 6.3.2 Primary production 125 6.4 Metabolic balance in the Atlantic 126 6.5 Discussion 128 Implications to the global CO2 budget 128 Traditional incubations versus metabolic theory 129 Further caveats 131 Energetic equivalence rule 131 6.6 Conclusions 132 CHAPTER 7: DISCUSSION 133 Further work 136 Conclusions 137 REFERENCES 138 APPENDICES ON SUPPLEMENTARY CD Appendix 1: Literature survey of plankton respiration rates Appendix 2: Literature survey of plankton growth rates LIST OF TABLES Table 2.1. Summary of cruises. 25 Table 2.2. Plankton size categories. 28 Table 2.3. Results of the least-squares (model 1) regression of size fractionated 32 biomass estimates derived from CHN and PVA analyses. Table 3.1. Methods used to measure the community size structure. 46 Table 3.2. Mean parameters of the least-squares (model 1) regression of the 49 NB-S model for each % light level. Table 3.3. Mean parameters of depth-integrated community NB-S slopes for 51 each oceanic province on the AMT (50-0 m) and the MarProd cruises (120-0 m). Table 3.4. Mean 50-0 m depth-integrated mesozooplankton and nano- 59 /microplankton biomass, abundance and size for each oceanic province. Table 4.1. List of data obtained to compare to plankton NB-S slopes. 71 Table 4.2. Regression analysis of the least squares (model 1) regression 85 between the community slope and biomass. Table 5.1. Data available for community and within trophic level spectra 101 analysis at L4. Table 5.2. Regression analyses of the least-squares (model 1) regression 107 between NB-S slopes and biomass. Table 5.3 Least-squares (model 1) regression of within trophic level spectra. 107 Table 6.1. Summary statistics for the metabolic scaling of the individual 122 physiological rates of marine plankton. LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1.1. SeaWIFS image of mean surface chlorophyll concentration in the 3 Atlantic Ocean with AMT cruise tracks shown. Figure 1.2. A graphical model to explain the variance of biomass as a function 7 of body size of pelagic organisms in ocean and lake ecosystems a) within trophic levels and b) across trophic levels. Figure 1.3. A schematic of the NB-S spectrum (Platt and Denman 1978). 10 Figure 1.4. A simplified diagram of the main trophic pathways in the planktonic 15 food web. Figure 2.1. AMT cruise tracks. 24 Figure 2.2. Comparison between CHN and PVA estimates of mesozooplankton 31 a) total biomass and b) size fractionated biomass estimates. Fig. 2.3. Location of L4 coastal station. 34 Figure 2.4. 50-0 m depth-integrated NB-S spectra of the pico-, nano- to 37 microplankton and mesozooplankton community at a) 1˚N on AMT 12, b) 35˚N on AMT 13, c) 41˚S on AMT 13 and d) 24˚S on AMT 14. Figure 3.1. Major surface currents and upwelling zones of the Atlantic Ocean. 41 Figure 3.2. Location of the 82 AMT and 13 MarProd stations sampled and the 43 oceanic provinces that were crossed. Figure 3.3. Cluster analysis of the pigment distribution on AMT 12. 45 Figure 3.4. Latitudinal variation in i) the vertical structure of discrete nano- 47 /microplankton NB-S slopes with superimposed temperature contours in black and ii) the depth of the mixed layer along AMT 12-14. Figure 3.5. All the depth profiles from AMT 12-14 of discrete nano/microplankton NB-S slopes plotted against percentage light level. 49 Figure 3.6. Regression of nano-/microplankton abundance against the y- 50 intercepts of the linear fits to discrete NB-S spectra. Figure 3.7. The latitudinal pattern of AMT (50-0 m) and MarProd (120-0 m) 51 depth-integrated community NB-S slopes in each oceanic province. Figure 3.8. Relationship between latitude and depth-integrated community NB- 52 S slopes. Figure 3.9. MDS ordination of size fractionated plankton biomass integrated 53 from 50-0 m along AMT 12-14 with superimposed a) total biomass b) oceanic provinces and c) cruise tracks. Figure 3.10. Percentage of total mesozooplankton abundance in each size 54 fraction in 200-0 and 120-0 m for AMT 12-14 and MarProd cruises respectively. a) >1000, b) 500-1000 and c) 200-500 μm. Figure 3.11. Scanned images from a) the Mauritenean upwelling station at 21˚N 55 on AMT 13 and b) the arctic station in the Irminger Sea at 61˚N on the MarProd cruise. Figure 3.12. Latitudinal variation in mean mesozooplankton equivalent 56 spherical diameter (ESD) in the upper 50 m along AMT 12-14 and upper 120 m on MarProd. Figure 3.13. The variation in total mesozooplankton carbon from a) 200-0 m 57 and b) 50-0 m nets along the AMT. Figure 3.14. Scanned images from the northern temperate stations on AMT 14 57 at a) 42˚N and b) 49˚N, which were analysed using the Plankton Visual Analyser (PVA). Figure 3.15. Latitudinal variation in a) estimated biomass and b) abundance of 58 (i) mesozooplankton and (ii) nano-/microplankton integrated over the upper 50 m and 120 m along AMT 12-14 and MarProd respectively. Figure 3.16. Relationship between nano-/microplankton biomass and NB-S 65 slopes of depth-integrated community over the upper 50 m and 120 m along AMT 12-14 and MarProd respectively. Figure 3.17. Regression between mean nano-/microplankton ESD (μm) and 66 discrete nano-/microplankton NB-S slopes. Figure 4.1. The oceanic carbon cycle. 68 Figure 4.2. Spatial distribution of temperature along AMT 12-14. 73 Figure 4.3. Spatial distribution of the concentration of nitrate from discrete 75 bottle data during AMT 12-14. Figure 4.4. Latitudinal distribution of chlorophyll a concentration during AMT 77 12-14. Figure 4.5. Relationship between discrete in situ temperature and the discrete 78 nano-/microplankton NB-S slope. Figure 4.6. Effect of sea surface temperature (SST) on 50-0 m depth-integrated 79 NB-S slopes of a) the nano- to mesozooplankton community and b) the pico- to mesozooplankton community. Figure 4.7. Relationship between the concentration of in situ nitrate and the 79 NB-S slope of the discrete nano-/microplankton community size spectrum. Figure 4.8. Regression between maximum nitrate concentrations in 300-0 m and NB-S slopes of the nano- to mesozooplankton and pico- 80 to mesozooplankton community. Figure 4.9. Regression between depth-integrated chlorophyll a levels and NB-S 81 slopes of the nano- to mesozooplankton and pico- to mesozooplankton community size spectra. Figure 4.10. Relationship between 50-0 m depth-integrated normalised primary 81 production and NB-S slopes of the pico- to mesozooplankton community. Figure 4.11. Relationship between the biomass and mean size of 82 phytoplankton and mesozooplankton. Figure 4.12. Relationship between abundance and biomass of phytoplankton 83 and mesozooplankton on a vertically integrated basis. Figure 4.13. Relationship between cell size, represented by the NB-S slope, 83 versus biomass and abundance of phytoplankton. Figure 4.14. Regression between NB-S slopes of the pico- to mesozooplankton 84 community versus the mesozooplankton: pico- to microplankton biomass ratio. Figure 4.15. Regression between the NB-S slopes of the pico- to mesozooplankton community versus a) pico- to microplankton, 85 b) mesozooplankton and c) total plankton biomass. Figure 4.16. Variability in pico- to mesozooplankton abundance along the 86 Atlantic. Figure 4.17. Relationship between 50-0 m depth-integrated a) 87 production:respiration (P:R) and b) dark community respiration (DCR) versus pico- to mesozooplankton community NB-S slopes. Figure 4.18. Relationship between the organic carbon flux from the surface of 88 the ocean to the deep ocean, against the NB-S slopes of the pico- to mesozooplankton and nano- to mesozooplankton community. Fig. 5.1. Average seasonal cycle of the microbial community biomass structure 98 for phytoplankton and picoplankton at the L4 coastal staton. Fig. 5.2. Yearly average of the microbial community biomass structure between 99 1992 and 2003 at the L4 station. Figure 5.3. Mean mesozooplankton abundance structure at the L4 station. 100 Figure 5.4. Average a) seasonal and b) annual cycle of mesozooplankton at L4 101 between 1988 and 2003. Figure 5.5. Monthly-averaged spectra for the entire community (pico- to 102 mesozooplankton) at L4 between July 1998 and March 1999. Figure 5.6. Regression of the slopes of a) phyto- to mesozooplankton and b) 103 micro- to mesozooplankton versus pico-to mesozooplankton community. Figure 5.7. Three seasonal groupings of complete community size spectra in 104 winter, bloom and post-bloom periods. Figure 5.8. Seasonal variation in slopes of “across trophic levels” spectra at L4. 105 Figure 5.9. Regression of the NB-S slopes versus biomass of depth-integrated 106 a) phytoplankton, b) mesozooplankton and c) complete community for different community composites . Figure 5.10. Seasonal variability of within trophic-level NB-S slopes at the L4 108 station. Figure 5.11. The annual mean cycle in community and within trophic level 109 spectra between 1992 and 2003. Figure 5.12. Regression between slopes of the phyto-microzooplankton 109 community and phyto-mesozooplankton community. Figure 6.1. Effect of a) body size and b) temperature on temperature- 120 normalised and weight-normalised respiration rate respectively for bacteria, phytoplankton, micro- and mesozooplankton species. Figure 6.2. Effect of a) body size, b) temperature and c) irradiance on primary 121 production rate corrected for by the other two variables in each plot. Figure 6.3. a) AMT stations where data for the allometric models were available 123 and b) the abundance-size structure of the plankton community at each of these stations. Figure 6.4. Relationship between the allometric estimate and the direct 124 measurement (Winkler titration) of community respiration. Figure 6.5. Relationship between the allometric estimate and the direct 125 measurement of a) net and b) gross primary production. Figure 6.6. Relationship between volumetric allometric estimates of community 126 respiration and gross primary production. Figure 6.7. Spatial distribution of the net community production using the allometric method. 127 DECLARATION OF AUTHORSHIP I, …………………………………………………………………….., [please print name] declare that the thesis entitled [enter title] ……………………….…………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………………………………. and the work presented in it are my own. I confirm that: this work was done wholly while in candidature for a research degree at this University; no part of this thesis has previously been submitted for a degree or any other qualification at this University or any other institution; where I have consulted the published work of others, this is always clearly attributed; where I have quoted from the work of others, the source is always given. With the exception of such quotations, this thesis is entirely my own work; I have acknowledged all main sources of help; where the thesis is based on work done by myself jointly with others, I have made clear exactly what was done by others and what I have contributed myself; none of this work has been published before submission; or [delete as appropriate] parts of this work have been published as: [please list references] Signed: ……………………………………………………………………….. Date:……………………………………………………………………………. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS There are a number of people I would like to express my thanks to for their help and support during this study: Firstly, to my supervisors, Dr Roger Harris (PML), Dr Xabier Irigoien (AZTI) and Prof Patrick Holligan (NOC) for their support and guidance throughout this project. To all the postdoctoral colleagues who provided advice. Special thanks to Ángel López-Urrutia (Centro Oceanográfico de Gijón) for his mathematical knowledge and comments with regards to our collaborative work in Chapter 6. To Delphine Bonnet and Lidia Yebra (PML) for their statistical advice on data analysis. To all the colleagues who helped in the analysis of plankton samples. To Tania Smith (NOC) for assistance with the CHN and FlowCAM analysis, as well as general technical support. To Lucia Zarauz (AZTI) for training me in the use of FlowCAM. To Carmen Garcia-Comas and Lea Roselli for their help with the PVA analysis of the MarProd mesozooplankton samples. To Dr Fidel Echevarria for analysing and providing mesozooplankton size-frequency data from the L4 coastal station. To the Atlantic Meridional Transect Programme, in particular all the participants who collected, analysed samples and conducted experiments during the AMT cruises. To the British Oceanographic Data Centre for providing data from past and present AMT cruises. To Derek Harbour for providing plankton size structure data. To AMT scientists for allowing me to use unpublished data that helped in the interpretation of my results. To Dr Mike Zubkov and Jane Heywood (NOC) for supplying me the picoplankton counts. To Chris Lowe (PML) for his mixed layer depth calculations and general advice. To Dr Alex Poulton (NOC) for allowing me to use his primary production data. To Dr Niki Gist and Dr Carol Robinson (PML) for their production and respiration measurements. To Sandy Thomalla (UCT) for providing preliminary carbon export estimates. To Katie Chamberlain and Malcolm Woodward for supplying nitrate concentrations. To all the principal scientists for their help during the work at sea, as well as the captain, crew and UKORS engineers on board RRS James Clark Ross for their excellent support. To the other participants of the cruises (you know who you are) for the notable teamwork and enthusiasm. This work was supported by the Natural Environmental Research Council through the Atlantic Meridional Transect consortium (NER/0/5/2001/00680), a CASE award from Plymouth Marine Laboratory and a small Marine Productivity thematic Grant NE/C508342/1. Finally, last but by no means least, to my friends, family and Dougal for their continual encouragement and optimism. LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS AMT Atlantic Meridional Transect ANOVA Analysis of variance ARCT Arctic AZTI Arrantza eta Elikaigintzarako Institutu Teknologikoa BODC British Oceanographic Data Centre BOFS Biogeochemical Ocean Flux Study C Carbon Chl Chlorophyll CNRY Eastern Coastal Boundary CO2 Carbon dioxide CR Community respiration CTD Conductivity, temperature, density CV Coefficient of variation DCM Deep chlorophyll maximum DCR Dark community respiration DOC Dissolved organic carbon DOM Dissolved organic matter ESD Equivalent spherical diameter FKLD Southwest Atlantic Shelves GP Gross primary production H:A Heterotrophic to autotrophic biomass ratio HPLC High Performance Liquid Chromatography LWCC Liquid waveguide capillary cell MarProd Marine Productivity MLD Mixed layer depth MDS Multidimensional scaling NADR North Atlantic Drift NAST North Atlantic Subtropical Gyre NATR North Atlantic Tropical Gyre NB-S Normalised biomass-size NCP Net community production NERC Natural Environment Research Council NOC National Oceanography Centre NP Net primary production O2 Oxygen OPC Optical plankton counter PAR Photosynthetically active radiation PML Plymouth Marine Laboratory POC Particulate organic carbon PP Primary production P:R Production to respiration ratio PRIME Plankton Reactivity in the Marine Environment PRIMER Plymouth Routines in Multivariate Ecological Research PVA Plankton Visual Analyser RQ Respiratory quotient SAPS Stand Alone Pumps SARC Subarctic SATL South Atlantic Gyre SeaWIFS Sea-viewing Wide Field-of-View Sensor SST Sea surface temperature SSTC South Subtropical Convergence UCT University of Cape Town WTRA Western Tropical Atlantic “It is obviously important to look for ecosystem generalities… However, once generality is stated and its significance or triviality clarified, the scientific inquiry leads inevitably to the analysis of variability.” Rodríguez, J. 1994. Some comments on the size-based structural analysis of the pelagic ecosystem. Scientia Marina 58: 1-10. CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION Knowledge of the rate of energy or carbon flux within ecosystems is important for ecological studies of global change. Global climate models predict that the present and increasing levels of anthropogenic atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO 2) will lead to a rise in global temperatures, rising sea levels, and changes in precipitation patterns. Such changes are already occurring (Barnett et al. 2005). The oceans play a major role in the global carbon cycle and the ultimate fate of anthropogenic CO2 (Falkowski et al. 2000). In the oceanic ecosystem, CO2 in solution is converted to organic matter by the photosynthetic activity of phytoplankton, and enters the pelagic food web via a variety of heterotrophic organisms. The downward transport of organic carbon from surface waters to the deep ocean as a result of biological productivity is known as the “biological pump”. In oceanic areas where the biological pump is working actively, sea surface CO2 decreases and promotes the draw-down of CO2 from the atmosphere; the ocean acts as a sink of CO2. The situation may be reversed when the biological pump is weak and the ocean acts as a source of CO2 to the atmosphere. Plankton play a key role in this oceanic carbon flux and are one of the principal mechanisms for transfer of carbon out of the atmosphere into the surface waters and eventually the deep ocean and sediments (Legendre and Le Fèvre 1991; Legendre and Rivkin 2002; Turner 2002). Furthermore, mesozooplankton, as well as having an important role as grazers in the pelagic food web and representing the primary food source for fish, they are also responsible for providing a sink of organic carbon through sinking faecal pellets (Le Borgne and Rodier 1997; Roy et al. 2000) and diel vertical migration (Morales et al. 1993; Morales 1999). They also maintain phytoplankton growth by providing recycled nutrients to otherwise nutrient-depleted oligotrophic waters (Banse 1995; Isla et al. 2004). Global warming may have a substantial effect on plankton community structure and dynamics (Edwards and Richardson 2004; Hays et al. 2005), and consequently the carbon cycle and sustainable resources in the oceans. Increased stratification of the surface ocean by global warming could lead to greater selection pressures and significant changes in biogeochemical dynamics. Nature may not always respond to gradual changes in climate in a smooth way. Regime shifts have been seen in both terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems, where gradual change is interrupted by sudden drastic switches to a contrasting state (Scheffer et al. 2001). Karl et al. (2001) hypothesised that the abrupt change found in the phytoplankton community size structure of the North Pacific subtropical gyre toward an ecosystem dominated by prokaryotes was in response to climate variations. These changes are expected to lead to a more complex food web and a reduction in the flow of carbon to 1 the top level predators. Furthermore, a reduction in the ecological role of eukaryotes may result in a decline in the export of carbon from the euphotic zone to the deep ocean. There is an important duality in the way we view planktonic communities. On the one hand, these communities are composed of an extremely diverse group of taxonomically and biogeochemically different species. Pelagic ecosystem models, that predict the ocean’s role in the global carbon cycle, are used to resolve these multiple plankton taxa (Armstrong 1999). However, superimposed on this diversity are regular patterns of size structure, where plots of abundance within size classes typically show a power-law dependence on size, and biomass is invariant with increasing size. The discovery of this striking regularity by Sheldon et al. (1972) led to the development of this approach as a valuable tool for the analysis of aquatic ecosystems. Several theoretical models were proposed to explore the flow of energy from smallest to largest organisms with the aim of describing the functioning and organisation of pelagic ecosystems. The work of Platt and Denman (1978) drove important advances in plankton size spectra theory. The study of abundance-size distributions of planktonic organisms within communities has contributed widely to a better understanding of plankton ecology, as they reflect general features of the underlying population dynamics related to the characteristic body-size dependent metabolic rates (Fenchel 1974; Lehman 1988; Gaedke 1993; Brown et al. 2004) and ecological regulation of an organism’s abundance (Agustí and Kalff 1989; Zhou and Huntley 1997; Belgrano et al. 2002; Li 2002). 2 1.1 Atlantic Meridional Transect (AMT) Programme The Atlantic Meridional Transect (AMT) programme involves the bi-annual passage through the Atlantic Ocean between the UK and the Falkland Islands of the RRS James Clark Ross, or in more recent years the RRS Discovery to South Africa (Aiken and Bale 2000; AMT 2005). In September/October the ship sails southward, sampling the North Atlantic during the boreal autumn and the South Atlantic during the austral spring. The following April/May it returns to the UK, this time sampling the South Atlantic during the austral autumn and the North Atlantic during the boreal spring. Figure 1.1. Sea-viewing Wide Field-of-View Sensor (SeaWIFS) ocean-colour image of 2003 yearly composite of mean surface chlorophyll concentration (mg m-3) in the Atlantic Ocean with the CTD stations of AMT cruises that form the basis of this thesis. Key for each cruise is the AMT cruise number. For example, 12 stands for AMT 12. The original AMT sampling programme (1995-2000) began as a Natural Environment Research Council (NERC), Plankton Reactivity in the Marine Environment (PRIME) Special Topic and grew through funding from Plymouth Marine Laboratory (PML) and external partners to a programme of more than 20 UK and European institutions. The current AMT programme (2002-2006) is a NERC Consortium Project involving 45 3 investigators, researchers and students from 6 partner UK institutions as well as a number of national and international collaborations. The cruise track generally avoids coastal zones, keeping to the open ocean except at either end of the transect (Fig. 1.1). The main aim of the programme is to obtain a decadal time series from 18 cruises, of spatially extensive and internally consistent observations on the structure and biogeochemical properties of planktonic ecosystems in the Atlantic Ocean, and has been co-ordinated to enable integration and synthesis of all measurements. The AMT programme focuses on 9 interlinked scientific hypotheses which are grouped under three objectives: 1. To determine how the structure, functional properties and trophic status of the major planktonic ecosystems vary in space and time. 2. To determine the role of physical processes in controlling the rates of nutrient supply, including DOM, to the planktonic ecosystem. 3. To determine the role of atmosphere-ocean exchange and photo-degradation in the formation and fate of organic matter. This Ph.D. study contributes to Hypothesis 1 of AMT Objective 1: “The size spectra and mineralisation capacity of planktonic organisms are major determinants of CO2 and organic matter export to the atmosphere and deep water”. 4 1.2 Community size structure 1.2.1 Why size matters The importance of organism size in ecology and physiology has been recognised for a long time (Kleiber 1932; Fenchel 1974; Peters 1983). The growth (Banse 1976; Niklas 2004) and sinking rates (Smayda 1970; Kiørboe 1993) of for example phytoplankton, as well as their susceptibilities to grazing (Frost 1972; Berggreen et al. 1988; Hansen et al. 1994) are all functions of cell size. Weight-specific growth (Båmstedt and Skjoldal 1980; Hirst and Sheader 1997; Hirst and Lampitt 1998; Hirst and Bunker 2003; Hirst et al. 2003), fecundity (Kiørboe and Sabatini 1995; Bunker and Hirst 2004), respiration (Ikeda 1985) and ingestion (Huntley and Boyd 1984; Halvorsen et al. 2001) of mesozooplankton are dependent on body size, as well as temperature (Huntley and Lopez 1992; Hirst et al. 2003) and food limitation (Hirst and Lampitt 1998; Calbet and Agustí 1999; Hirst and Bunker 2003; Bunker and Hirst 2004). Body size is also an important variable in relation to population dynamics both in terrestrial (Damuth 1981; Damuth 1987; Enquist et al. 1998; Jetz et al. 2004) and aquatic ecosystems (Duarte et al. 1987; Agustí and Kalff 1989; Schmid et al. 2000; Belgrano et al. 2002; Li 2002) given that smaller organisms are able to reach higher maximal population densities than larger ones. Different algal size classes and taxa may be grazed by predators whose faecal pellets sink at different speeds, which may in turn influence the depth at which remineralisation and respiration occurs (Armstrong 1999). All these functions of organism size result in this property being considered a major determinant of the pathways and rates of material transfer in aquatic ecosystems (Legendre and Le Fèvre 1991; Roy et al. 2000; Legendre and Rivkin 2002). Furthermore, size-based relationships apply to all organisms and can, thus, be used as a general means of comparison both within and between ecosystems. 1.2.2 Scaling in biology Allometry is the study of the relative growth of part of an organism in relation to the growth of the whole. Many characteristics of organisms vary predictably with body size and can be described by allometric equations, which are power functions of the form: Y=Y0Mb (1) These equations relate some dependent biological variable, Y, such as developmental time, to body mass, M, through two coefficients, an allometric exponent, b, and a normalisation constant, Y0, characteristic of the type of organism. Almost all properties 5 of organisms ranging from physiological, ecological, anatomical, through to life-history characteristics appear to scale as quarter-power exponents of body mass or length (Peters 1983; Calder 1984; Beuchat et al. 1997; Enquist et al. 1998; Whitfield 2001; Marquet et al. 2005). Figure 1.2a illustrates the theoretical allometric relationship between a biological variable, such as abundance (N) and body mass (M). The common property of scaling to -¾ is depicted. Despite the diversity and complexity of ecological systems, when data for many individuals of a number of different species are analysed, some striking regularities, such as the distribution of abundance, are observed (Brown and Gillooly 2003). Metabolic rate is a measure of the rate at which an organism uses energy to sustain essential life processes such as respiration, growth and reproduction, and ultimately determines the rates of almost all biological activities, from patterns of diversity to population dynamics (Whitfield 2004). It can be measured in a number of ways from the total heat produced over a given period to the energy content of food eaten. Respiration, or the uptake of oxygen, is another indicator of energy generation in organisms assuming aerobic metabolism based on organic matter, and is commonly used to characterise a number of aerobic organisms, such as aquatic protists (Fenchel 2005). Kleiber (1932) who worked with mammals and birds, was the first to show that an organism’s metabolic rate scaled with the ¾-power of body mass. This relationship has been found in a broad spectrum of animals from microbes to whales (Vaclav 2000; Gillooly et al. 2001), as well as plants (Enquist et al. 1998). However, much variability in the scaling of metabolic rate with body mass have been related to taxonomic, physiological, and/or environmental differences, which can not adequately be explained by existing theoretical models (Glazier 2005). Nevertheless, the origins of these universal quarter-power scaling exponents have been the subject of considerable theoretical consideration (West et al. 1997; West et al. 1999a; West et al. 1999b; Gillooly et al. 2001; Brown et al. 2002; Enquist et al. 2003; West and Brown 2005). West and co-workers proposed that the quarter-power law is based on the physical and geometric constraints of circulatory systems for distributing resources and removing wastes in organisms. These authors suggest that both the vascular network of plants and the animal blood transport system resemble branching, fractal-like networks, and that capillary size does not depend on organism size. They were also able to extend their considerations to cells, mitochondria and respiratory complexes (West et al. 2002). In this way, the constraints on biological characteristics lie within the distribution networks of an organism. If true, their model provides a unifying explanation for all sizedependent biological phenomena. 6 Energetic equivalence rule If population density (N) decreases with individual body size (M) as -¾ in communities that share a common energy source, and metabolic rate, or individual resource use, scales as ¾, this suggests that the rate of resource or energy use (E) by organisms is invariant with respect to body size (Fig. 1.2a). This is known as the “energetic equivalence rule” and suggests that random environmental variations and interspecific competition have acted over evolutionary time to keep energy control of all species within similar limits (Damuth 1981). a) b) Figure 1.2. A graphical model from Brown and Gillooly (2003) to explain the variation in abundance as a function of body size of pelagic organisms in ocean and lake ecosystems a) within trophic levels and b) across trophic levels from phytoplankton (P) to zooplankton (Z) to fish (F). M is body mass, E is the activation energy of metabolism, B is mass-specific rate of metabolism, or biomass, and N is number of individuals. Assumptions of the model are that the ratio of predator size to prey size is about four orders of magnitude, and that 10% of energy is transferred to successive trophic levels (Lindeman 1942). There is some debate, however, as to the generality of ¾ metabolic scaling. Recent reexaminations of mammalian and bird basal metabolic rate have pointed to deviations from the quarter-power rule which cannot be explained by measurement errors (Dodds et al. 2001; White and Seymour 2003). These studies rejected the universal ¾-power law and favoured the original geometric ⅔ scaling exponent (Rubner 1883) as a better explanation to compare metabolic rates of organisms of different sizes. The ⅔ exponent suggests that the surface area of the organism, rather than the internal fractal 7 circulatory network, controls the heat loss of the organism, and hence, its metabolic rate. The underlying mathematics of West and co-worker’s unifying ¾-power law models (1997; 1999a; 1999b; 2002; 2005) has also been criticised. Kozlowski and Konarzewshi (2004) argue that biological networks are not generally branching fractals and that the theory can not simultaneously contain both size-invariant terminal supplying vessels and ¾-power scaling. If this were the case large animals would have more blood than their bodies could contain. Furthermore, resource limitation has been found to alter the size scaling of metabolic rates in situations where resource acquisition depends on organism size (Finkel et al. 2004). An example of this limitation is that of light harvesting by phytoplankton (Finkel 2001). At irradiances above Ek, where photosynthetic rate is saturated, the size-dependence of photosynthesis is controlled by the size-dependence of the maximum photosynthetic rate and exhibits the universal ¾-power of mass rule. At irradiances below Ek, however, the supply of energy does not match the demands of growth rate. At these low light levels, the sizedependence of photosynthetic rate is dictated by the size-dependence of light absorption and intracellular pigment concentration. Smaller phytoplankton and cells with higher pigment concentrations are able to acquire their metabolic needs more effectively. This resource limitation results in a deviation from the ¾-power. It has also been argued that organism-specific adaptations are more predictive than size structure when resource exploitation influences community composition (Lehman 1988). Even though there has been some disagreement with the models underpinning the quarterpower scaling laws, the fact that their predictions fit real-world data remarkably well has far-reaching ecological and evolutionary implications. In this way, net primary production has been predicted to be mostly insensitive to community species composition or geological age (Niklas and Enquist 2001). 1.2.3 Community size spectra In size-structured food webs not all individuals share a common energy use, and the energy available to successive trophic levels is thermodynamically constrained by inefficient energy transfer up the food chain (Lindeman 1942). Empirical measurements have shown that the transfer efficiency of energy between trophic levels is thought to be no more than ≈ 10% (Lindeman 1942; Pauly and Christensen 1995). The decreasing energy available to organisms at successively higher trophic levels should result in sequentially lower population-level energy use, with plants requiring more than herbivores, herbivores requiring more than omnivores and so forth (Fig. 1.2b). According to the estimates of Brown et al. (2004), the range of body sizes within a trophic level, as well as the difference in average size between trophic levels, is about four orders of magnitude. In this way, abundance declines with body size with a -1 8 scaling exponent across all trophic levels and the entire spectrum of body sizes (Brown and Gillooly 2003). If this is the case then it follows that energy flux declines with body size as M-1/4 and biomass scales as M0 and is therefore invariant with increasing size (Fig. 1.2b). The quarter-power allometry rule that predator-prey body size ratios exhibit suggests that they can potentially be explained in terms of metabolic constraints (Brown et al. 2004). This constancy in community size spectra, which was first shown for plankton in open oceans by Sheldon et al. (1972) has attracted much subsequent attention from plankton ecologists and ecosystem modellers. Abundance-size spectra are a highly effective approach to summarise the size structure of plankton communities (Cottingham 1999; Cózar et al. 2003). They display the relative abundance of organisms of different sizes across trophic levels and convey a comprehensive picture of ecological communities that is taxon independent. Their holistic description facilitates ecosystem comparisons in both time and space. Sheldon et al. (1977) recognised the predictive nature of plankton size spectra, suggesting that if the standing stock at any size range is known, the standing stock at any other size can be estimated. In this way, fish stocks have been predicted using the planktonic size spectrum (Sprules et al. 1982). Moreover, a spectral approach offers the ability to enhance ecosystem models, such as those that focus on ocean biogeochemistry (Armstrong 1999). Theory of plankton size spectra The development of theoretical models of the plankton community (Kerr 1974; Sheldon et al. 1977; Platt and Denman 1978; Silvert and Platt 1978; Blanco et al. 1994; Vidondo et al. 1997; Rinaldo et al. 2002) has been encouraged by regularities in size structure and by the well-established size dependencies of many biological processes (Peters 1983). Kerr’s (1974) discrete-step model is based on the concept of trophic levels, where the biomass flow from small to large sized organisms is governed by distinct predator-prey relationships. Platt and Denman (1978), on the other hand, introduced a theoretical concept that considered the biomass flux as a continuous flow of energy, i.e. a conservative property. This model relied on empirically established allometric relationships between body weight and metabolic processes (Fenchel 1974). In other words, the turnover of material within each size class was assumed to be controlled by the reproductive and respiratory rates of organisms with the nominal weight which typified that size class. Theirs, which is the simplest and most commonly applied model, is called the normalised biomass-size (NB-S) spectrum. In idealised form, it fits a linear model on a double logarithmic plot of normalised biomass, approximately abundance, versus particle size, conforming to a power law: 9 Bm/∆m = amb (2) or log2 (Bm/∆m) = a + b log2 m (2.1) where Bm is the total biomass in volume, or carbon, per size class m, a and b are constants, and ∆m is the size class interval. The model is computed for each sample from the spectrum of biomass concentrations in base 2 logarithmic size intervals (Fig. 1.3). Integration over any range of sizes provides a smoothed estimate of biomass over that range. Quantitative empirical analyses of planktonic structure are usually based on the parameters generated by the least-squares (model 1) regression line fitted to the size spectra (slope, b; y-intercept, a; coefficient of determination, r2). The slope reflects the overall trend in biomass from class to class and the y-intercept is related to the total abundance in the system. log2 (Bm/∆m) growth mortality log2 (m) Figure 1.3. A schematic of the NB-S spectrum (Platt and Denman 1978). The green arrow indicates a spectrum with a shallower slope and thus a more efficient transfer of energy up the spectrum and potentially more carbon export out of the upper mixed layer. The red arrow shows how a spectrum with a steeper slope demonstrates the reverse. The blue arrows illustrate how points lying above and below a spectrum can represent the growth and mortality of a population. 10 The theory suggests that the NB-S spectrum of oceanic pelagic systems is close to steady state, whereby biomass is approximately evenly distributed over logarithmic size classes, and will be linear with a slope close to -1 or -1.22, depending whether biomass is expressed as volume or carbon respectively. When carbon units are used, the slope of this spectrum will have a lower limit of -0.82, if all organisms are unicells, and an upper limit of -1.22 when they are all heterotherms (Fenchel 1974; Platt and Denman 1978). This exponent range represents a balance between catabolism and anabolism and, consequently, from a scaling standpoint it is consistent with the recently proposed metabolic theory of ecology (Brown et al. 2004). Steeper slopes show that biomass declines with increasing size whereas shallower slopes reflect the reverse. In other words, steeper slopes imply that overall average predation pressure decreases with size (Kiørboe 1993) and that there is a loss of available energy to higher trophic levels. In this way, the slope of the spectrum gives an indication of the efficiency of biomass transfer to larger organisms (Gaedke 1993). Community size structure can also influence the pathways of carbon export and sequestration (Legendre and Le Fèvre 1991) and thus, NB-S slopes, should have the potential to reflect changes in upper ocean carbon flux. Furthermore, Zhou and Huntley (1997) developed the NB-S spectrum theory further to incorporate the balance between growth and mortality of individuals, in order to predict changes in biomass within each size class. The hypothesis that biomass is roughly uniformly distributed over logarithmic size classes (Sheldon et al. 1972) has been empirically tested in nearly steady state as well as fluctuating aquatic ecosystems, ranging from the open ocean (Rodríguez and Mullin 1986a; Gin et al. 1999; Cavender-Bares et al. 2001; Yamaguchi et al. 2002; Piontkovski et al. 2003a; Quiñones et al. 2003) to coastal regions (Rodríguez et al. 2001; Nogueira et al. 2004), as well as freshwater lakes (Sprules and Munawar 1986; Hanson et al. 1989; Ahrens and Peters 1991; Gasol et al. 1991; Gaedke 1992b; Cyr et al. 1997; Tittel et al. 1998; Cottingham 1999; Cózar et al. 2003) and a lagoonal study (Gilabert 2001). Individual plankton size spectra within large regions with similar ecological conditions can be remarkably consistent (Rodríguez and Mullin 1986a; Cavender-Bares et al. 2001; Quiñones et al. 2003). For example, Quiñones et al. (2003) found no difference among the slopes of the NB-S spectra within or between two oligotrophic regions of the oceanic northwest Atlantic, suggesting that it is possible to generalise the size structure of plankton in the oligotrophic ocean, in terms of the slope of the NB-S spectrum. This constancy suggests that powerful organising mechanisms are at work in these stable communities (Rinaldo et al. 2002). Conversely, deviations from linear relationships are also significant as they may indicate the 11 presence of characteristic sizes, which are influenced by how ecological processes structure ecosystems across both time and space scales (Sprules and Munawar 1986; Gasol et al. 1991; Cózar et al. 2003). Their potentially predictive power suggests that regular monitoring of communities using plankton size spectra could provide early warning of external stress in aquatic environments. Limitations to size spectra theory It can be argued that current theories of size spectra (Platt and Denman 1978; Vidondo et al. 1997) have limited value in explaining size distributions that include bacteria. This is because they assume a unidirectional biomass flux exclusively from small to large organisms. However, the trophic structure of the picoplankton community does not conform to this assumption. Pelagic bacteria live predominantly on organic matter originating from larger sized organisms; mainly phytoplankton (Moran and Hodson 1994) but also copepods (Zubkov and López-Urrutia 2003). Hence, primary production enters and is re-cycled in the microbial food web, which does not conform to the assumption of biomass flux up the size spectrum. Gaedke (1993) identified this issue from lake plankton size spectra and suggested that natural assemblages of pelagic bacteria would be unlikely to attain the potential productivity implied by allometric relationships. However, a number of studies that included picoplankton in their abundance-size spectra found consistency in the slopes (Ahrens and Peters 1991; Tittel et al. 1998; Gin et al. 1999; Cavender-Bares et al. 2001; Cózar et al. 2003; Quiñones et al. 2003), suggesting that there is an internal balance between the consequences of shortcuts up the size-structured food chain and reverse flow back along it via the microbial loop. 1.2.4 Factors shaping plankton size spectra A variety of factors have been found to influence biomass size distributions, from external perturbations, such as nutrient loading (Ahrens and Peters 1991; Cottingham 1999), to latitude (Piontkovski et al. 2003a), depth variation (Rodríguez and Mullin 1986a; Gin et al. 1999; Yamaguchi et al. 2002; Quiñones et al. 2003), seasonality (Rodríguez and Mullin 1986a; Hanson et al. 1989; Gasol et al. 1991; Gaedke 1992b; Gin et al. 1999; Gilabert 2001), ecosystem productivity (Sprules and Munawar 1986; Cyr et al. 1997; Tittel et al. 1998), cascading effects (Cottingham 1999; Cózar et al. 2003), physical forcing (Rodríguez et al. 2001; Piontkovski et al. 2003a) and type of ecosystem (Quiñones et al. 2003). A number of freshwater lake studies (Ahrens and Peters 1991; Cottingham 1999), for example, found that the slope of the normalised biomass spectrum became significantly steeper as the concentration of phosphorus and total biomass declined confirming the view that oligotrophic systems have a 12 greater proportion of smaller organisms. The size distribution of plankton is also strongly shaped by physical processes of advection and turbulence (Kiørboe 1993). It was, thus, unsurprising that a recent study found a direct influence of mesoscale vertical motion, a feature of eddies and unstable fronts, on the slope of the phytoplankton abundance-size spectrum (Rodríguez et al. 2001). Upward motion retains large cells in the upper layer against their sinking tendency and therefore results in a flatter spectrum slope. This effect is in agreement with the flatter slopes of biomass spectra found by Piontkovski (2003a) in the divergence zone of the equatorial upwelling compared to the convergence zone of the South Atlantic gyre. Ecosystem stability Community size spectra should give some indication of ecosystem stability (Makarieva et al. 2004). Most stable environments, such as the open ocean, have been characterised by low values of the scaling exponent, i.e. a more negative NB-S spectral slope, and high correlation coefficients (Rodríguez and Mullin 1986a; Gin et al. 1999; Cavender-Bares et al. 2001; Quiñones et al. 2003), whereas the converse was found to be true in unstable aquatic ecosystems (Sprules and Munawar 1986; Rodríguez et al. 2001; Li 2002; Cózar et al. 2003; Nogueira et al. 2004). Nogueira et al. (2004), for example, found a clear coastal to offshore gradient from flatter to steeper NB-S spectra. Makarieva (2004) suggests that in stable communities there are strong restrictions on fluctuations of fluxes of biological synthesis and decomposition that can be introduced by the larger organisms leading to a suppression of energy flow through to larger organisms. In unstable ecosystems, however, where the environment is shaped more heavily by abiotic processes, no ecological restrictions can be imposed on biotic environmental fluctuations. Consequently, the energy flow of the community can be distributed irregularly over differently sized animals in unstable ecosystems. This theory supports the concept that the NB-S spectrum is a measure of “ecosystem health”. Ecosystems far from steady state that show “wavy” spectra can be compared to ones with linear spectra. Attempts have been made to fit nonlinear functions to spectrum irregularities (Dickie et al. 1987; Gasol et al. 1991; Thiebaux and Dickie 1993; Vidondo et al. 1997; Rinaldo et al. 2002). When including the picoplankton size range (0.2-2 μm), Gasol (1991) found that second-order coefficient polynomials best fitted NB-S spectra and were a more useful index of the degree of seasonal dominance by different organisms. Gilabert (2001), contrastingly, found that the variability of the slope and the seasonal trend was lessened when considering the picoplankton. These conflicting results may be a result of the differing stability in both environments; a sulphurous lake 13 (Gasol et al. 1991) and a coastal lagoon (Gilabert 2001) may have indicated the changing role of the microbial component in the organisation of the pelagic food web. A direct empirical test of a complete community’s NB-S spectrum remains elusive given the tremendous spatial and temporal scale differences existing among the entire pelagic community from viruses to whales. The NB-S spectral analysis in this study will be applied to the plankton community from picoplankton to mesozooplankton. This size range represents a variety of functional diversities, that include a number of trophic modes and ecological processes (Kerr 1974; Rinaldo et al. 2002). Data available so far are not sufficiently comprehensive to attribute patterns of the shape of plankton size spectra to specific characteristics of aquatic ecosystems. Thus, the extensive latitudinal and vertical depth range, as well as the variety of productive ecosystems that are sampled along the AMT offers the ideal setting to evaluate the potential of NB-S slopes. Furthermore, given that the theoretical NB-S spectrum proposes steady-state conditions, sampling in the stable open oligotrophic waters of the southern and northern Atlantic gyres will enable this assumption to be evaluated. Pelagic food web The traditional view that the herbivorous, or classical, food web is dominant in marine systems is now recognised as simplistic. Since its discovery (Azam et al. 1983), the microbial food web is accepted as an important, if not central, component of aquatic systems (Fig. 1.4). Ecosystem models have shown the microbial loop to be the dominant component in a strongly stratified, oligotrophic environment (Baretta-Bekker et al. 1997; Andersen and Ducklow 2001), in which regenerated ammonium is the only available form of inorganic nitrogen and recycling dominates (Kiørboe 1993). Nonlinear effects, such as feedback and trophic cascade are now also considered to be important structural factors in the flow of carbon in microbial food webs (Calbet and Landry 1999). Microzooplankton are an important link between the microbial loop and higher trophic levels in the food chain. They are significant consumers of pico- and nanoplankton production (Calbet and Landry 2004) and represent a valuable food for mesozooplankton (Sanders and Wickham 1993; Broglio et al. 2004), particularly in unproductive ecosystems (Calbet 2001). Mesozooplankton remain important consumers of phytoplankton carbon, particularly in well-mixed, productive ecosystems, where nitrate enters the euphotic layer (Kiørboe 1993) and the classical linear food chain appears to be the main path of carbon transfer (Batten et al. 2001; Calbet 2001). Furthermore, picoplankton were found to play an important part in the export of carbon 14 from the euphotic zone in the equatorial Pacific through a pathway involving production of detritus from picoplankton carbon and subsequent grazing of this detritus by mesozooplankton (Richardson et al. 2004). Hence, although the pelagic food web is complex, knowledge of carbon flux rates and mechanisms is fundamental to evaluate the role of food-web interactions in the oceanic carbon cycle. 5000 Inorganic nutrients 200 Size (μm) 20 CO2 2 0.2 DOC, organic nutrients Figure 1.4. A simplified diagram of the main trophic pathways in the planktonic food web. Blue arrows indicate pathways of the ‘classical food web’ and orange arrows that of the ‘microbial food web’. Pico-, nano- and micro- phytoplankton (unfilled symbols) utilise CO2 during photosynthesis. Phytoplankton are grazed within the microbial food chain represented by flagellates and ciliates, and the classic herbivorous food chain by mesozooplankton (filled symbols). DOC, exuded from cells or produced by ‘sloppy feeding’ can be used by heterotrophic bacteria. Adapted from Samuelsson (2003). 15 Autotrophic versus heterotrophic biomass can reveal the shape of biomass pyramids in areas of the ocean (Morán et al. 2004). Gasol et al. (1997) used an extensive literature data survey to show that the ratio of total heterotrophic (bacteria, protozoa and mesozooplankton) biomass to total autotrophic (phytoplankton) biomass, the H:A ratio, declines with increasing phytoplankton biomass and primary production. They suggest a rather systematic shift from consumer, or top-down, control of primary production and phytoplankton biomass in the open ocean to resource, or bottom-up, control in upwelling and coastal areas. The work of Cortés et al. (2001) on coccolithophore ecology in the North Pacific gyre, however, did not find this pattern. They showed that in the upper photic zone, coccolithophores were influenced by temperature and phosphate availability, whereas in the lower photic zone, light and nitrate seemed to be the influencing factors. This abiotic control indicates that it is nitrate and light limitation in oligotrophic regions that control the growth of coccolithophores, not grazing by higher trophic levels. Knowledge of the absolute and relative contributions of the various components of the microbial food web to total biomass is, thus, critical in understanding and modelling the biogeochemical cycling of carbon and nutrients (Gin et al. 1999) and to elucidate this apparent contradiction between resource versus a consumer driven oligotrophic open ocean. Plankton biomass-size spectra are an attempt to simplify and compartmentalise the major trophic relationships of the complex marine food web (Longhurst 1991). Their ability to portray the transfer efficiency of biomass to larger organisms gives an indication of the ratio between larger and smaller organisms, such as predator to prey biomass ratios (Jennings and Mackinson 2003). Furthermore, spectral irregularities have been shown to be controlled by certain functional size ranges, such as the three groups found by Cózar et al. (2003): Microbial food web, nanoplankton-microplankton autotrophs and herbivorous organisms. A comparison between complete and NB-S spectra of different components of the community should give insight into the potential trophic interactions within and between contrasting ecosystems. Flux of organic matter The pelagic food web plays significant roles in regulating the exchange of CO2 between the atmosphere and the upper ocean, the downward export of organic carbon, and the transfer of organic carbon towards marine renewable resources (Legendre and Le Fèvre 1991; Legendre and Rivkin 2002). In ecological terms, material passed up the food web is also export from the primary production system. It may be exported either horizontally, through passive transport associated with circulatory patterns or active migration of large pelagic animals, or vertically, through passive sedimentation of living 16 or detrital particles, or active vertical migrations of organisms. The balance between energy flow through the microbial and classical food chain determines the ability of the ecosystem to recycle carbon within the upper layer or to export it to the ocean interior. Hence, in productive ecosystems, as well as grazing by higher trophic levels, sedimentation and advection are important mechanisms of primary production loss (Baines et al. 1994a). Here it is the larger, normally bloom forming, phytoplankton, such as diatoms (Irigoien et al. 2004), that contribute most to the sinking flux of organic carbon (Billet et al. 1983; Scharek et al. 1999). By contrast, the export ratio appears to be lowest in oligotrophic areas, where smaller phytoplankton are prevalent and the efficient recycling of nutrients and organic matter minimise carbon loss (Wassmann 1990; Legendre and Le Fèvre 1991; Teira et al. 2001; Peña 2003). Therefore, the role of plankton in the biological pump can vary significantly and needs quantification. The sinking of particles from the euphotic zone is an important fate of planktonic organic matter (Eppley and Peterson 1979; Turner 2002). Mesozooplankton faecal pellets, for example, can contribute significantly to the downward flux of biogenic carbon, transferring both carbon of autotrophic and heterotrophic origin (Roy et al. 2000). The fraction of organic carbon that sinks (particulate organic carbon, POC) or is mixed or advected (dissolved organic carbon, DOC) below the euphotic zone, where levels of light are too low for photosynthesis to occur, may be ingested, metabolised, or remineralised. The permanent pycnocline is a persistent barrier to deep vertical mixing and is typically centred at ca. 1000 m depth at low and intermediate latitudes, but poorly developed or absent at high latitudes where deep convection occurs. The majority of the POC and DOC exported from the upper ocean is remineralised and very little reaches the great depths and ocean floor (Legendre and Rivkin 2002; Turner 2002). The small proportion, however, of the organic carbon, that is transferred below the permanent pycnocline would be sequestered there for centuries (Falkowski et al. 2000). The reasons why the transfer of organic carbon to higher trophic levels or to the deep ocean is of significance both to fisheries and carbon flux models are very clear. Fortunately, food web structure and the size spectrum of organisms are important determinants of the fraction of photosynthetically fixed carbon that sinks out of the upper mixed layer. Slopes of NB-S spectra can also exhibit the energy transfer and availability of carbon to upper trophic levels and should, therefore, give some indication of the fate of organic carbon in the marine environment. 17 Phytoplankton productivity Photosynthesis by marine organisms represents ca. 40% of the total primary productivity of the earth (Duarte and Cebrián 1996). Furthermore, although characterised by low levels of biological production, as a result of their vastness, oligotrophic areas of the open ocean have been estimated to account for up to 80% of the global ocean production and 70% of total export production (Karl et al. 1996). Nevertheless, estimates of primary production alone cannot provide an appropriate understanding of the ecological role of phytoplankton or their function in the marine carbon cycle (Duarte and Cebrián 1996). The fraction of marine photosynthetic carbon flowing through different trophic pathways has been reported to be independent of primary production (Cebrián and Duarte 1995; Duarte and Cebrián 1996). This finding stresses the need for knowledge of the fate as well as the amount of photosynthetic carbon production in order to fully understand the functioning of different types of marine ecosystems. Furthermore, a principal goal of ecology is to understand and be able to predict the abundance of organisms and the rate of temporal change. However, it can be argued that photosynthesis alone cannot achieve this objective, not only because the rate of photosynthesis does not equal cell division, but also due to the fact that phytoplankton may be grazed by zooplankton (Banse 2002; Marra 2003). Hence, allometry and NB-S spectra may provide more effective approaches in reaching these goals. Agawin et al. (2000) compiled a comprehensive review of literature data from oceanic and coastal estuarine areas, which support the increasing relative importance of picophytoplankton in warm, oligotrophic waters. Along the AMT (AMT 2-5), picophytoplankton dominated and, on average, accounted for 56% and near 71% of the total integrated carbon fixation and autotrophic biomass respectively throughout the range of productive regimes (Marañón et al. 2001). Even though the familiar enhanced biomass and productivity of nano- and microplankton occurred in the temperate regions and in the upwelling region off Mauritania, Marañón et al. (2001) argued that the importance of picophytoplankton should no longer be restricted to the oligotrophic gyres. Primary production rates were found to vary from 50 mg C m -2 d-1 in the central gyres to 500-1000 mg C m-2 d-1 in upwelling and higher latitude regions (Marañón et al. 2000). 18 Metabolic balance in the oceans Ecosystem respiration is a crucial component of the carbon cycle and may be important in regulating biosphere response to global climate change. The role of oceanic ecosystems as regional biological sources or sinks of CO2, however, is controversial (del Giorgio and Cole 1997; del Giorgio et al. 1997; Geider 1997; Williams 1998; Duarte et al. 1999; Williams and Bowers 1999). Recent studies suggest that microbial community respiration (CR) exceeds gross primary production (GP) in oligotrophic seas and that they are net heterotrophic (del Giorgio et al. 1997; Duarte and Agustí 1998; Duarte et al. 2001; Morán et al. 2004). If this is the case, these extensive areas may behave as biological sources of CO2 which in turn would have great implications for global biogeochemical cycles. Euphotic zone GP and CR measured along the AMT (Serret et al. 2001; Robinson et al. 2002; Serret et al. 2002) included two major oceanic oligotrophic provinces according to the classification of Longhurst (1998): The eastern area of the North Atlantic Subtropical Gyre (NAST) and the centre of the South Atlantic Gyre (SATL). The plankton community of the NAST was found to be net heterotrophic supporting recent studies but in contrast was net autotrophic in the SATL. It was suggested that the existence of different trophic dynamics in similarly unproductive planktonic communities (Serret et al. 2001; Serret et al. 2002) could be characterised by the relative importance of local autochthonous (SATL) versus allochthonous (NAST) sources of organic matter, the latter of which is able to support net heterotrophy (Duarte and Agustí 1998; Duarte et al. 2001). Smith and Kemp (2001) investigated the quantitative significance of the picoplankton contribution to GP and CR in the plankton community of Chesapeake Bay and found that there was an important linkage between the size distribution of the primary producers and the overall balance of GP and R in the plankton community. Hence, the potential of plankton size distributions in indicating net autotrophy versus heterotrophy will also be explored. Mesozooplankton of the Atlantic Ocean In the subtropical and tropical Atlantic Ocean, a general agreement has been found between chlorophyll concentrations and mesozooplankton biomass distributions on an ocean basin scale (Calbet and Agustí 1999; Finenko et al. 2003). Superimposed physical properties such as frontal systems (Franks 1992), eddies and currents (Huntley et al. 2000) or increased turbulence from wind stress (Andersen et al. 2001; Incze et al. 2001) can have a major effect on plankton dynamics, ultimately influencing food web structure and, consequently, mesozooplankton biomass and abundance. Gallienne et al. (2001) found that the mean size of mesozooplankton generally 19 decreased from a latitude of 60°N to 47°N during July 1996 and their statistical analysis supported the view that mesozooplankton size structure is influenced by both physical conditions and chlorophyll concentration. Mesozooplankton studies conducted on the AMT programme have focused on community size structure (Gallienne and Robins 1998), distribution (Woodd-Walker 2001), grazing (Huskin et al. 2001b; Isla et al. 2004) and rates of respiration and excretion (Isla et al. 2004). Previous AMT cruises (AMT 2, 4-6, 11) have found copepod abundance to be higher at high latitudes in Spring, near northwest Africa in the equatorial and Benguela upwelling systems, as well as in the subtropical convergence, and lower, as expected, in the oligotrophic gyres (Huskin et al. 2001b; Isla et al. 2004). Feeding, as determined by gut fluorescence techniques, was not always related to phytoplankton biomass or production, which may be an indication of preferential microzooplankton grazing. Piontkovski et al. (2003b) used data collected along the AMT (1995-1999) to analyse macroscale patterns in plankton dynamics and found that there was a general trend towards more negative slopes of mesozooplankton NB-S spectra from the equatorial region to the oligotrophic gyre. 20 1.3 Hypothesis and objectives Plankton size spectra have been analysed in several environments on a variety of local or regional scales. However, there is a lack of integrated studies covering an expansive range of spatial and temporal scales. Furthermore, in marine ecosystems most studies of size spectra have been conducted for only a small size range of planktonic organisms. This study will therefore be the largest basin-scale comparative analysis including all the plankton community from pico- to mesozooplankton. It considers the Atlantic Ocean between 49°S to 67°N, as well as a decadal coastal time series off the coast of Plymouth (UK). Although obtaining NB-S spectra is relatively easy, interpreting the variations can sometimes be difficult (Rodríguez and Mullin 1986a; Cavender-Bares et al. 2001), and examples of practical applications are somewhat scarce. Conversely, important developments regarding the ¾-power law that relates metabolic rates and body mass have been published recently, providing the theoretical basis for its practical application (Gillooly et al. 2001; West et al. 2002; Enquist et al. 2003) and a general metabolic theory of ecology (Brown et al. 2004). Both NB-S spectra and biological scaling by the ¾-power law are remarkably constant and can be applied to all types of organisms across ecosystems. Furthermore, the distribution measured by one (NB-S) can be used by the other (allometry) to estimate metabolic rates. Hence, practical aspects of allometric scaling in aquatic ecosystems will be investigated as well as possible connections between the two theories. 21 Hypothesis: Variations in the abundance-size structure of plankton can be used as a descriptor of the rates of material transfer in the upper ocean in different productive regions The thesis will test this hypothesis through a series of objectives and aims that are summarised as follows: 1. To examine patterns in community size structure To determine size spectra for the entire plankton community from picoplankton to mesozooplankton (Chapter 4 and 5) To observe how the characteristics of the size spectrum vary with the inclusion of different components of the community both within and across trophic levels (Chapter 3-5) To observe spatial and temporal variation of plankton size spectra in relation to latitude, depth and season (Chapter 3 and 5) 2. To identify factors controlling the slope of plankton size spectra To compare the slopes of size spectra to abiotic and biotic factors within contrasting dimensions of time and space (Chapter 4) To compare spectral slopes with available AMT data of other biogeochemical indicators of carbon flux (Chapter 4) 3. To investigate practical applications of allometry in aquatic ecosystems To see whether the energetic equivalence rule is fulfilled for phytoplankton (Chapter 5 and 6) To estimate production and respiration rates of the plankton community using allometric models based on the metabolic theory of ecology (Brown et al. 2004) (Chapter 6) To compare estimates of community production and respiration to direct incubation measures to validate the allometric models’ potential as a complementary method (Chapter 6) To observe the metabolic balance of the Atlantic Ocean (Chapter 6) 22 CHAPTER 2: METHODS 2.1 Sample collection 2.1.1 AMT cruise programme The AMT programme undertakes biological, chemical and physical oceanographic research in the Atlantic Ocean. The bi-annual passage of the British Antarctic Survey vessel, RRS James Clark Ross, has generally been used as the ship of opportunity, between the UK and the Falkland Islands (AMT 1-5; 7-8; 12-14) or the UK and Uruguay (AMT 9-11), on its way to and from Antarctica. On occasion, the AMT has followed an alternate route between the UK and South Africa using RRS Discovery as a substitute (AMT 6; 15-17). Recent cruises have alternated their focus between oligotrophic and upwelling regions of the North Atlantic Ocean (AMT 12-17). The northbound cruises are sampling further into the centre of the North Atlantic Ocean and are termed “gyre” cruises (AMT 12; 14; 16; 17) and the southbound cruises are sampling off the North-West African coast (AMT 13; 15) and are referred to as “upwelling” cruises. The cruise track in the South Atlantic gyre is virtually identical for each of the recent cruises enabling interannual variability to be investigated. Seventeen Atlantic Meridional Transect cruises have taken place, providing one of the most coherent set of repeated biogeochemical observations made over ocean basin scales. The British Oceanographic Data Centre (BODC) is a component of the UK NERC’s data centre network for Marine Science (BODC 2005). As well as maintaining and supporting the AMT programme dataset, BODC provides access to past available AMT cruise data. This thesis is based on participation on AMT 12-14 and additionally data were obtained from BODC for AMT 1-6 (Fig. 2.1, Table 2.1). Data collected from AMT 12-14 that form the basis of this thesis have been sent to BODC and can be accessed via their website. Sampling on early AMT cruises was based around a mid-morning station. Water was collected from a CTD and bottle rosette system deployed to 200 m and used for a variety of measurements including nutrients, primary productivity and plankton taxonomy. Cell counts were made with an inverted microscope (Utermöhl 1958) on settled 10-100 ml samples, depending on the chlorophyll a concentration. Mesozooplankton sampling consisted of WP-2 200 μm vertical net hauls at each station (UNESCO 1968; Harris et al. 2000). Other measurements were made on cruises, details of which can be found in the cruise reports on the AMT website (AMT 23 2005). Although some night and other extra stations were made, less emphasis was placed on them during the earlier cruises. AMT 1-5 AMT 6 AMT 12 AMT 13 AMT 14 Figure 2.1. Generalised early AMT cruise track between the UK and the Falkland Islands (AMT 1-5) and the UK and South Africa (AMT 6) as well as the more recent AMT 12-14 cruise tracks. The map originates from the Ocean Data View programme (Schlitzer 2003). The recent AMT cruises have collected samples from 3 CTD casts at 2 stations per day (AMT 12-14). The hydrographic characteristics and fluorescence profiles of these stations were determined by CTD casts made with a Sea-Bird 911plus system equipped with a 0363 Chelsea MkIII Aquatracka Fluorometer. The CTD fluorometer was calibrated against chlorophyll a determined by fluorometric analysis (data originator: Patrick Holligan and Alex Poulton group, National Oceanography Centre, 24 NOC, Southampton). The CTD frame was fitted with 24 × 20l Niskin-type water bottles from which water samples were collected. Inorganic nutrients were measured colourimetrically on fresh unfiltered seawater samples collected at each depth with a 5 channel Bran and Luebbe AAIII, Segmented Flow Autoanalyser and a Liquid Waveguide Capillary Cell (LWCC) using standard techniques (data originators: Malcolm Woodward and Katie Chamberlain, PML). The main cast, which was referred to as the “productivity” cast, where the majority of biogeochemical measurements were made, took place at a pre-dawn station. This ensured on-deck incubations made during daylight hours, such as 14 C primary production and respiration, or oxygen production, experiments, could be set up by dawn. The second cast conducted at the pre-dawn station enabled large volumes of water to be collected for grazing experiments and measurements such as nitrogen fixation and thorium export estimations to be made. The third CTD cast at the mid-morning station coincided with a variety of optical measurements. CRUISE DATES TRACK FOCUS AMT 1 21/09/1995 – 24/10/1995 UK – Falklands - AMT 2 22/04/1996 – 22/05/1996 Falklands – UK - AMT 3 16/09/1996 – 25/10/1996 UK – Falklands - AMT 4 21/04/1997 – 27/05/1997 Falklands – UK - AMT 5 15/09/1997 – 17/10/1997 UK – Falklands - AMT 6 14/05/1998 – 16/06/1998 South Africa – UK - AMT 12 12/05/2003 – 17/06/2003 Falklands – UK Gyre AMT 13 10/09/2003 – 14/10/2003 UK – Falklands Upwelling AMT 14 28/04/2004 – 02/06/2004 Falklands – UK Gyre Table 2.1. Summary of AMT cruises. 2.1.2 CTD sampling Seawater samples were collected from the CTD Niskin bottles at the pre-dawn “productivity” cast from 5 depths equivalent to 55%, 33%, 14%, 1% and 0.1% surface irradiance. The seawater was handled with care as some microorganisms, such as ciliates, are very sensitive to turbulence (Gifford 1993). The samples were slowly poured, avoiding bubbles, into 100 ml glass medical caps bottles pre-filled with 1 ml Lugol’s iodine to make up a 1% fixative (Throndsen 1978; Sherr and Sherr 1993). The fixed samples were then kept cool and stored in the dark until subsequent size structure determination. 25 2.1.3 Net sampling Vertical WP-2 200 μm mesh net hauls were towed at 30 m min-1 from both 200 and 50 m depths at every pre-dawn station. Upon recovery, the net was thoroughly rinsed and the complete catch regained. There are a number of limitations to conventional net sampling methods: They are labour intensive; have limited ability in resolving smallscale spatial variability and large-scale heterogeneity or patchiness; and have significant bias in terms of size selectivity (Gallienne and Robins 2001). Despite these limitations, good agreement has been found between abundances as well as biovolume and carbon analysis determined using an optical plankton counter (OPC), which is capable of large-scale, rapid and continuous characterisation of mesozooplankton, and depth-integrated vertical net hauls (Gallienne et al. 2001). Furthermore, although there can be interspecific and size-based differences in the diel vertical migration of mesozooplankton (Rodríguez and Mullin 1986b; Hays et al. 1994), hauls were carried out at night on pre-dawn stations between 02:00 and 05:00 h local time to limit the variability caused by diel rhythms. 2.2 Sample analysis 2.2.1 Carbon and Nitrogen analysis Time allowing, the fresh mesozooplankton net samples were sub-sampled for size fractionated biomass by screening the sample through 1000, 500 and 200 μm sieves and rinsing thoroughly with 0.7 μm filtered seawater to create fractions of 200-500, 500-1000 and >1000 μm (Woodd-Walker 2000; Woodd-Walker 2001). Depending on the density of mesozooplankton, each size fraction was made up to 250-1000 ml with filtered seawater. Triplicate aliquots of 50 ml from each size fraction were filtered onto Whatman glass fibre filters (GF/C, 25 mm diameter; pre-ashed at 500˚C in a muffle furnace). Blanks were made by filtering 50 ml of the filtered seawater onto pre-ashed Whatman GF/C filters. Different storage methods were used on each cruise as a result of the unpredictable availability of the drying oven on board the ship. On AMT 12 the filters were stored in plastic Petri dishes and frozen at -20˚C until drying and further analysis in the laboratory. On AMT 13 the filters were dried under a 60 watt lamp and on AMT 14 they were dried in a 50-60˚C oven for 24 h before being wrapped in precombusted aluminium foil, compacted and stored at -20˚C. Both freezing and drying the filters are effective ways of preserving the mesozooplankton for a few months and should not affect the carbon and nitrogen content significantly (Woodd-Walker 2000). 26 The samples were subsequently analysed using a Carlo Erba 1500 CHN analyser. Eight standards of acetanilide between 0-8 mg were used to construct a calibration curve. Large quantities of mesozooplankton on the filters can cause split peaks or quenching of the detector so it was important to try to keep the carbon of these samples within the range of the standards. The autosampler of the CHN analyser was filled with sample pellets and interspersed with blanks. The carbon and nitrogen biomasses were corrected from the blanks and converted to mg m-3, assuming a 95% filtering efficiency for the WP-2 net (Harris et al. 2000). The rest of the net sample was fixed in borax-buffered formaldehyde to a final concentration of 4% (Steedman 1976) for subsequent size structure analysis. 2.2.2 Size structure analysis Historically, several measurement techniques have been used to construct planktonic size spectra, each of which has been a compromise. The Coulter Counter (Sheldon et al. 1972), OPC (Nogueira et al. 2004), and semi-automatic image analysers (Gilabert 2001) cannot distinguish between intact cells and detritus. Other studies have relied on microscopy to improve the quality of the data (Rodríguez and Mullin 1986a; Sprules and Munawar 1986; Ahrens and Peters 1991; Gasol et al. 1991; Gaedke 1992b; Tittel et al. 1998; Cottingham 1999; Yamaguchi et al. 2002; Cózar et al. 2003; Piontkovski et al. 2003a). However, microscopy can not always eliminate the bias resulting from the inclusion of detrital particles (Bakker et al. 1985). Furthermore, this labour-intensive approach limits the number of data points, thus limiting resolution on the size axis. Flow cytometry (Gin et al. 1999; Cavender-Bares et al. 2001; Cózar et al. 2003), on the other hand, has the advantage of being able to count tens to hundreds of cells per second as well as distinguishing between non-living particles (Zubkov et al. 2002). However, it can only analyse particles within the narrow pico to nano size range. Since particles in the ocean decrease in abundance as a power of size, automated systems tend to be optimal for restricted size ranges of the whole spectrum. Hence, a number of image analysis techniques were used in this study to determine the size structure within different ranges of the size spectrum (Table 2.2). Detrital material in the microplankton and mesozooplankton samples was included as they form part of the energy flux in the system. Detritus-based food chains, for example, have been shown to fuel secondary productivity in many ecosystems (Mann 1988; Richardson et al. 2004). 27 SIZE CATEGORY SIZE IMAGE ANALYSIS TECHNIQUE Picoplankton < 2 μm Flow cytometry Nanoplankton 2-20 μm FlowCAM Microplankton 20-200 μm FlowCAM Mesoplankton 200-2000 μm PVA Macroplankton 2-20 mm PVA Table 2.2. Methods used to analyse each plankton size category (Dussart 1965). Nanoplankton and microplankton The size structure of the nanoplankton in the 10-20 μm size range and microplankton community in the 20-130 μm size range was determined using the FlowCAM (Sieracki et al. 1998; FlowCAM 2005), which is an instrument that instantaneously counts, takes a digital image and sizes particles greater than 10 μm flowing through the detection flow chamber. Although an ×4 objective was used to detect this size range, the resolution of the images was insufficient for adequate identification of individual organisms. Beads of a known size were passed through the FlowCAM to calibrate the instrument. Distilled water was pumped through the instrument between samples and a small amount of diluted bleach passed through after ca. 30 samples, to clean the tubing. Each Lugol’s fixed seawater sample was rotated several times, very carefully, avoiding any bubbles, and poured slowly into the sample inlet. The peristaltic pump was turned on at a flow rate of 1-1.5 ml min-1 and the sample analysed for 30 minutes or until the number of particles counted exceeded ca. 300. A Microsoft Excel spreadsheet with various cell characteristics of each particle detected was produced automatically by the FlowCAM for each sample analysed. The FlowCAM takes 3 images of the sample passing the objective’s field of view per second. Hence, the concentration of particles can be calculated using the following equations: Pi = N/3t (1) Pc = Pik (2) and where Pi is the “particles per image”, N is the number of particles counted, t is the time in seconds, Pc is the concentration of particles ml-1 and k is the calibration constant, which is dependent of the objective used (k = 2500 with ×4 objective). The particles 28 were assumed to be spherical and the biovolume of each cell was calculated from the equivalent spherical diameter (ESD) determined by the FlowCAM: Vf = 4Πr3/3 (3) where Vf is the volume of the cell and r is the radius. The volume was corrected for cell shrinkage caused by Lugol’s preservation (Montagnes et al. 1994): Vc = 1.33Vf (4) where Vc is the corrected volume. The effects of fixation appear to be species specific and the magnitude and direction of cell volume change is dependent on type and strength of fixative (Leakey 1994; Stoecker et al. 1994). However, although there is some debate as to whether corrections for fixation effects can be made reliably, in terms of its application in this basin scale oceanic study, the error in the corrected volume would be a constant factor and should, therefore, not affect observations of large scale spatial variability. The corrected volumes were finally converted to carbon (Menden-Deuer and Lessard 2000) using the following equations for protist plankton smaller and greater than 3000 μm3: If Vc ≤ 3000 μm3, log C = -0.583 + 0.86log Vc (5) or Vc > 3000 μm3, log C = -0.665 + 0.939logVc (6) where C is the amount of carbon per cell in picograms. Although the second carbon conversion excluded diatoms, as far as is known this is the most comprehensive carbon-volume relationship in the available literature (Strathmann 1967; Putt and Stoecker 1989; Montagnes et al. 1994) and the only one that includes dinoflagellates in their estimation. Menden-Deuer and Lessard (2000) caution the use of these conversions over large size ranges as carbon density is not constant but decreases significantly with increasing cell volume. Thus, these conversion factors have the potential to cause systematic errors in biomass estimates. 29 Mesozooplankton The size structure of the preserved 50-0 and 200-0 m net samples, after part of them had been removed for CHN analysis, was determined using the freely available Plankton Visual Analyser (PVA) image analysis software (PVA 2005). The PVA permits a rapid and complete analysis of preserved mesozooplankton samples and stores data in digital form. The net samples were stained for 24 hours with 4 ml 1% eosin, a stain primarily used in histology, which dyes cytoplasm and muscle protein effectively, to create sufficient contrast to be recognised by the PVA. Each sample was washed thoroughly to remove the formalin and excess dye, and diluted in a round bottom flask with 0.2 μm filtered seawater up to the 200 ml level. The flask was rotated several times to homogenise the sample and a sub-sample (5-50 ml) taken using a Stempel pipette, the volume of which depended on the density of mesozooplankton. The subsample was carefully washed into a clear plastic tray (12.5 × 8.5 cm) and homogenised manually with a teasing needle. All major mesozooplankton groups were identified and some qualitative observation on their abundance or dominance was made. The tray containing the sub-sample was scanned in 256 (8-bit) colours at a resolution of 600 dpi using an HP Scanjet 8200 series scanner. The tray edges of the digital image were cropped and the new area of the sub-sample noted for subsequent abundance and biomass calculations. The colour threshold was optimised by increasing the contrast of the image in Microsoft Photo Editor and the image saved as a JPEG document. Although each sample image took approximately 30 minutes to be analysed, the advantage of PVA is that it can process a list of images, and can therefore be left running overnight. Once PVA has finished analysing, an Excel worksheet is automatically produced containing various characteristics, including the ESD in millimetres of each particle ≥ 170 µm in the sample image. The volume of each zooplankter was calculated from the ESD, using equation 3, and converted to carbon (Alcaraz et al. 2003): Cf = 0.0695V (7) where Cf is the organic carbon content of the formalin fixed zooplankter and V is its biovolume. This equation was developed for the <5mm size fraction and did not include salps or other gelatinous organisms, which have a lower carbon to volume relationship. Therefore, although the 95% confidence limits (0.0643-0.0746) and standard error of the regression coefficient (0.0695 ± 0.0013) were low, there may be an overestimation in the carbon content of some organisms resulting in potential error in the total biomass estimates. The majority of the samples in the Atlantic were composed mainly of copepods and so the error caused by this overestimation is not expected to be 30 substantial. The carbon estimates were then corrected for shrinkage caused by formalin (Alcaraz et al. 2003): C = 0.026 + 1.490Cf (8) where C is the fresh organic carbon content of mesozooplankton. Direct measurements versus estimates of carbon biomass Total and size fractionated mesozooplankton carbon biomass determined from CHN and PVA analysis of 50-0 and 200-0 m WP-2 net sub-samples were compared (Fig. 2.2, Table 2.3). The linear relationships between the biomass measurements were resolved and the coefficient of determinations, r2, were calculated as a measure of the linear degree of scatter or “goodness of fit”. A one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) was performed to test whether there was a significant relationship (Zar 1999). The F ratio produced by this statistical test is an expression of the actual and expected variation of the sample averages. An F ratio close to 1 would indicate that the regression was not significant and a large value would point to some relationship. The probability (p) provides the significance level at which the F statistic is significant. Although there was some scatter, there was a significant positive correlation between total biomass estimated by both methods (Fig. 2.2a). The circled outlier is a result of the large standard error (0.99) in the mean carbon content (3.56 mg C m-3) of the largest size fraction (> 1000 μm) at this station. >1000 μm 500-1000 μm 200-500 μm 8 a.) b.) 6 -3 CHN (mg C m ) 12 8 4 4 2 0 0 0 20 40 0 60 -3 2 4 6 8 -3 PVA (mg C m ) PVA (mg C m ) Figure 2.2. Comparison between CHN and PVA estimates of mesozooplankton a) total biomass and b) size fractionated biomass estimates. The solid line is the least-squares (model 1) regression [y = 0.11x + 1.14, r2 = 0.45, F77 = 63.21, p<0.001]. The dashed line is the 1:1 fit. Regression statistics are given in Table 2.3. 31 > 1000 μm 500-1000 μm 200-500 μm slope 0.09 (0.01) 0.15 (0.02) 0.67 (0.05) y-intercept 0.67 (0.16) 0.18 (0.04) -0.03 (0.06) 1.03 0.26 0.41 0.43 0.55 0.71 F74 = 56.72 F76 = 92.67 F76 = 189.52 p<0.001 p<0.001 p<0.001 standard deviation r2 ANOVA Table 2.3. Results of the least-squares (model 1) regression of size fractionated biomass estimates derived from CHN and PVA analyses. Presented are the slopes, yintercepts, standard deviations and the coefficient of determination (r2) of each regression equation. The analysis of variance results are shown where the subscript values of the F ratio are the degrees of freedom. Standard deviations of slopes and yintercepts are given in brackets. The biomass derived from size-based estimates using PVA was higher than the CHN measurements. This may be a combination of the CHN analyser’s underestimates caused by any decomposition of carbon in the drying and freezing storage process or quenching of the CHN detector, as well as an overestimation of the carbon content of gelatinous zooplankton using the conversion factors for the PVA method (Alcaraz et al. 2003). The degree of residual variation increased with size, so that the smallest fraction had an r2 value of 0.71 and the largest size fraction had an r2 of 0.43 (Fig 2.2b, Table 2.3). Nevertheless all the linear regressions were statistically significant (p<0.001). Picoplankton It is now generally accepted that picoplankton are the dominant component and producers of a pelagic community, particularly in the oligotrophic open ocean (Agawin et al. 2000; Marañón et al. 2001). However, there are only a limited number of studies that have considered the picoplankton in their analysis of plankton size spectra (Gasol et al. 1991; Tittel et al. 1998; Gin et al. 1999; Cavender-Bares et al. 2001; Cózar et al. 2003; Quiñones et al. 2003). Picoplankton will, therefore, be included in this analysis to evaluate how they conform to the general NB-S spectra model. Flow cytometry was conducted on picoplankton along the AMT cruises by Jane Heywood (AMT 12-15) and Mike Zubkov (AMT 3-4; 6; 13-14). The abundances of the different groups (heterotrophic bacteria; Prochlorococcus; Synechococcus; picoeukaryotes) at the 32 corresponding depths for each of the pre-dawn stations were made available for this study. Cell numbers were converted to carbon biomass using the following estimates from Zubkov et al. (2000): 11.5 fg C per heterotrophic bacterium, 29 fg C per Prochlorococcus cell, 100fg C per Synechococcus cell and 1.5 pg C per picoeukaryote algal cell. 2.2.3 Marine Productivity research programme The NERC Marine Productivity (MarProd) programme’s main objective was to investigate the influence of physical factors on mesozooplankton population dynamics focusing on the Irminger Sea region of the North Atlantic. The research conducted on four cruises during 2001-2002 aimed to develop coupled modelling and observational systems for the ocean ecosystem (MarProd 2005). Thirteen Lugol’s preserved nanoand microplankton samples collected from the chlorophyll a maximum and formalin fixed mesozooplankton WP-2 200 µm vertical net samples (120-0 m) were made available from the second RRS Discovery D262 cruise that took place during 18 April – 27 May 2002. The size structure of the nano- to microplankton and mesozooplankton samples was determined using the FlowCAM and PVA respectively, in the same way as for the AMT samples. This analysis will extend the latitudinal range of the pelagic community size structure measurements to include sub-arctic and arctic regions of the North Atlantic (61˚ – 67˚N) in what is one of the most extensive comparisons to date of marine planktonic ecosystems using the same methodology. 2.3 Data processing 2.3.1 L4 plankton monitoring programme Station L4 is a coastal time series station in the Western English Channel located 10 nautical miles off Plymouth (50°15’N, 04°13’W; Fig. 2.3). Weather permitting, weekly mesozooplankton bottom to surface (50-0 m) vertical net samples have been collected with a WP-2 200 μm mesh since 1988 (L4 2005). By 1992 this time series included a range of physical, chemical and biological measurements, as well as microplankton sampling. Phytoplankton and microzooplankton identification (Dodge 1982; Lee et al. 1985; Tomas 1996), and enumeration were conducted in the laboratory by Derek Harbour using inverted microscopy (Utermöhl 1958). Species-specific volumes were assigned to each organism (Kovala and Larrance 1966) and their carbon content calculated (Eppley et al. 1970): 33 log C[diatoms] = 0.76(log V) – 0.352 (9) log C[dinoflagellates and ciliates] = 0.94(log V) – 0.6 (10) where C is the carbon mass (pg) and V the volume (μm3). This decadal series of high frequency observations offers a very comprehensive dataset and provides a valuable opportunity to investigate interannual variability and seasonality in plankton community dynamics. Normalised biomass-size spectra of the plankton community were determined, enabling comparisons between a coastal time series and the spatially extensive observations in the Atlantic Ocean. Plymouth L4 Fig. 2.3. Location of L4 coastal station. 34 2.3.2 Quantification of plankton size structure Methods for evaluating the size structure of plankton assemblages vary widely. The simplest and most commonly used approach divides plankton abundance (Morales et al. 1993; Woodd-Walker 2001) or biomass (Head et al. 1999; Marañón et al. 2001) into size classes using a specific size criterion. Normalised biomass-size spectra and mean ESD are two alternative approaches that assess size structure using more detailed information on size variation among individuals. These three alternative measures of the plankton size distribution were used to describe the community on the AMT and MarProd cruises. Plankton abundance and biomass was integrated (Integr DOS package) from surface to 50 m to enable comparisons with latitude and ensure comparability with mesozooplankton 50-0m net samples. i. Size classes The 50-0 m depth-integrated nano- to mesozooplankton biomass from each station on AMT 12-14 were divided into size classes and grouped in terms of similarity using Plymouth Routines In Multivariate Ecological Research (PRIMER 5), a package based on non-parametric statistics suitable for studying variations in community structure (Clarke and Warwick 2001). A Bray-Curtis similarity matrix was applied and the data was root transformed before multidimensional scaling (MDS) and cluster analysis was carried out to identify groupings of biota sizes by identifying clusters or a trend with latitude. The horizontal spatial structure of size fractionated mesozooplankton abundance (200-500; 500-1000 and >1000 μm ESD) was also observed in the Atlantic. The vertical distribution (200-0 and 50-0 m) of mesozooplankton biomass on AMT 1214 was compared. ii. Normalised biomass-size spectra Normalised biomass-size (NB-S) spectra were used to examine and quantify the distribution of plankton biomass among multiple size classes. The NB-S spectrum for each size class was estimated following Platt and Denman (1978): log2 (Bm/∆m) = a + b log2 m (11) where Bm is the total biomass in the size class (m, m + ∆m), a and b are constants, and ∆m is the size class interval. Size classes were arranged with increasing widths, following a geometric 2n series (…2 × 10-9 mg C, 4 × 10-9 mg C, 8 × 10-9 mg C, 1.6 × 10-8 mg C…) because wider classes would reduce the resolution and total number of classes available for each distribution and narrower size classes would increase the noise as a result of sizing and sampling error (Blanco et al. 1994). With this division, 35 the amplitude of the size class (∆m) is equal to its lower limit (m). The total biomass in each weight category was adjusted for net efficiency (Harris et al. 2000) and aliquot size to give absolute biomass in each class. The biomass was normalised (βm) to make the spectra independent of size class by dividing the biomass in each size class by the width (i.e. lower size limit) of the size class, βm = Bm/∆m ≈ Bm/m. The parameters of the least-squares linear (model 1) regression fitted to the log2transformed data were obtained from different size ranges. Although a model 2 regression would be more appropriate, because the independent variable, body size, is not under the control of the investigator and is subjected to error, a model 1 regression was applied as it allowed differences to be tested between regression lines and enabled comparison with other published spectra. Along AMT 12-14, the size spectrum ranges that were analysed included: 1.) Nano- to microplankton between 10-130 μm ESD (6.40 × 10-8 – 6.55 × 10-5 mg C ind-1) 2.) Nano- to mesozooplankton between 10-4300 μm ESD (6.40 × 10-8 – 4.30 mg C ind-1) 3.) Pico- to mesozooplankton between 0.45-4300 μm ESD (1.15 × 10-11 – 4.30 mg C ind-1) The organisms measured for the complete community NB-S spectrum covered a size range over 10 orders of magnitude ranging from bacteria to mesozooplankton (Fig. 2.4). The extreme size ranges of each sampling technique can be subject to error resulting in curvature, and referred to as “inflection points”, of the linear relationship on a double log plot at either end of the spectrum. Net sampling, for example, does not always quantitatively retain organisms in the smaller size ranges and can only sample representatively within a limited size range because of the impact of mesh size and net avoidance (Harris et al. 2000; Gallienne and Robins 2001). Furthermore, relatively low volumes analysed by the FlowCAM (30-40 ml) underrepresented the larger microplankton (130-200 μm). The inflection points at the extreme size ranges of each method were not included as they could cause potential error in the calculation of the parameters of the spectrum. Any size class with zero biomass was also excluded from the analysis, leaving an average of 20 size classes for each AMT sampling station. Although the application of Platt and Denman’s model has the limitation that it is very sensitive to the existence of missing size ranges in the size spectrum, the mean r2 of depth-integrated complete community spectra was 0.99 and ranged between 0.96 and 1.00. There were no clear peaks or troughs in depth-integrated plankton size spectra. They all had exceptionally low variability and a significant regression (ANOVA, P<0.001). 36 The slopes of discrete nano- to microplankton size spectra at discrete depths were observed in relation to the depth of the mixing layer, which is an index of the thermocline, deep chlorophyll maximum and nutricline (Hooker et al. 2000). The latitudinal pattern in depth-integrated NB-S spectra was also examined in the Atlantic. A one-way ANOVA test was applied to the slopes of plankton size spectra from different oceanic provinces (Longhurst 1998) to test whether there were differences between size spectra. Given that multiple ANOVA or T-tests are generally invalid to find out which factors are causing the significant difference, a multiple comparison test was required to observe which provinces were significantly different. As well as being a widely accepted and commonly used method, the Tukey test was employed because it is particularly robust (Zar 1999). This method checks the confidence intervals for all pairwise differences between level means according to an error rate, or significance level, of 0.05. a.) -1 picoplantkon (flow cytometry) -2 mg C m / ∆ mg C ind log2 [normalised biomass] 50 40 30 30 20 20 mesozooplankton (PVA) 10 10 0 -50 -40 -30 -20 -10 0 mg C m / ∆ mg C ind -1 50 -2 b.) 40 nano- to microplankton (FlowCAM) 0 log2 [normalised biomass] 50 10 c.) -50 -30 -20 -10 0 50 40 40 30 30 20 20 10 10 0 -40 10 d.) 0 -50 -40 -30 -20 -10 0 10 -1 -50 -40 -30 -20 -10 0 10 -1 log2 [size] mg C ind log2 [size] mg C ind Figure 2.4. 50-0 m depth-integrated NB-S spectra of the pico-, nano- to microplankton and mesozooplankton community at a) 1˚N on AMT 12 [slope = -1.03 0.02 (SE), r2 = 0.99, F21 = 2848, p<0.001], b) 35˚N on AMT 13 [slope = -1.04 0.03 (SE), r2 = 0.99, F19 = 1738, p<0.001], c) 41˚S on AMT 13 [slope = -0.92 0.03 (SE), r2 = 0.98, F20 = 1074, p<0.001] and d) 24˚S on AMT 14 [slope = -1.07 0.03 (SE), r2 = 0.99, F16 = 1094, 37 p<0.001]. The straight lines are the least-squares (model 1) regressions fitted to these data. The three techniques used to obtain the size frequency data for each of the size ranges are indicated. iii. Mean organism size The mean carbon content per organism for the mesozooplankton from each station was calculated by dividing the total carbon estimated by the number of individuals. Latitudinal variation of the average size (ESD) of mesozooplankton was also resolved in the Atlantic. 2.4 Scaling the metabolic balance of the oceans The work for Chapter 6 formed part of a collaboration with Ángel López-Urrutia (Centro Oceanográfico de Gijón, Spain). The metabolic theory of ecology (Brown et al. 2004) was used as a basis for the development of empirical scaling models of community respiration and production. Flux rates within an ecosystem are the result of the sum of individual rates of all the component organisms (Enquist et al. 2003; Allen et al. 2005), which in turn are controlled by the effects of both body size and temperature (Gillooly et al. 2001; West et al. 2002). In this way, for a plankton community composed of n individuals each with a metabolic rate Bi, if the body size of each organism, Mi, and ambient absolute temperature, T in Kelvin is known, community respiration (CR) can be derived (Enquist et al. 2003): (12) from knowledge of the normalisation constant b0, Boltzmann’s factor, e-Er/kT where Er is the average activation energy for metabolic reactions (Gillooly et al. 2001) and k is Boltzmann’s constant (8.62×10-5 eV Kelvin-1), and ¾ is the allometric scaling exponent for body size (West et al. 1997; West and Brown 2005). In net phytoplankton production (NPP) the relationship is complicated by the physiological dependence of photosynthesis on light (Falkowski and Owens 1978; Allen et al. 2005). Thus, the theory was extended to include this limiting factor, so that the relationship between individual production, Pi, and photosynthetically active radiation, PAR, is: 38 (13) where na is the total number of planktonic autotrophs, d0 is a normalisation constant independent of body size, temperature and light, Ep is the average activation energy for photosynthetic reactions and PAR/(PAR + Km) is the Michaelis-Menten , or Monod, photosynthetic light response (Baly 1935; Tilman 1977), where PAR is the photosynthetically active radiation and Km is the half-saturation constant that represents the concentration of photons at which half the maximum photosynthetic activity is reached. In order to test the metabolic theory (equations 12 and 13), data were compiled from the literature with studies providing concurrent measures of body size, temperature and respiration rates of marine plankton (bacteria, phytoplankton, micro- and mesozooplankton). Another database was formed of phytoplankton production rates from published literature providing information on cell size, temperature and incubation irradiance. Biomass production was calculated from daily specific growth rate (μ, d-1) and converted to oxygen production using a photosynthetic quotient of 1.25 (Duarte and Agustí 1998; Robinson et al. 2002). When phytoplankton body mass was expressed as volume in the original study it was converted into body carbon using the conversions of Menden-Deuer and Lessard (2000). If mesozooplankton was reported as dry or wet weight it was converted into carbon using conversion factors (Schneider 1992). In the rare occasions where neither body volume nor mass were reported in the study, body carbon for the same species reported in one of the other sources compiled was used. The application of the empirical relationships, or “allometric models”, that were developed from the large databases require knowledge of each trophic type of organism in the plankton community, i.e. whether they are heterotrophic or autotrophic. However, detailed identification was only conducted on plankton that had been collected on earlier AMT cruises. Hence, in order to estimate CR and NPP, the models could only be applied to plankton abundance-size data from earlier cruises (AMT 1-6) where this information was available. Picoplankton were analysed by flow cytometry and their carbon content estimated (Zubkov et al. 2000). Phytoplankton and microzooplankton were identified and counted by inverted microscopy (Utermöhl 1958) in the same way as for the L4 samples. The linear dimensions of individual taxa were used to calculate cell volumes (Kovala and Larrance 1966) and then converted to carbon using equations 9 and 10. Mesozooplankton were size fractionated (200-500 39 μm; 500-1000 μm; >1000 μm) as described in Huskin et al (2001b) and the carbon biomass in each fraction was divided by the average body carbon per zooplankter to obtain an estimate of abundance. The average body carbon for each size fraction (0.0041 g; 0.011 g; 0.041 g) calculated from AMT 6 data was used for all the cruises. To examine the value of allometric theory to estimate the metabolic balance of the oceans, the estimates of CR and NPP were compared to available in situ incubation measurements. Respiration estimates were made from changes in dissolved oxygen concentrations in light-dark incubations (AMT 6, data originator: Carol Robinson, PML) and primary production measurements were determined using the 14 C uptake method (AMT 5 & 6, data originators: Emilio Fernandez and Emilio Marañon, Universidad de Vigo, Spain). A detailed description of the incubation methods is available from the published literature (Marañón et al. 2000; Serret et al. 2001; Robinson et al. 2002). Once the validity of the allometric models is confirmed, the metabolic balance of all the AMT stations can be estimated where data on plankton community structure, temperature and PAR is available. Gross primary production (GP) was calculated from NPP and CR estimates (GP = NPP + R) and the spatial distribution of trophic status (GP:CR) and net community production (NCP = GP – CR) observed in the Atlantic. 2.4.1 Error propagation The errors in our estimates of community respiration and phytoplankton production obtained through equations 1 and 2 were calculated through simulation as it was not possible to do it analytically. For each station, 1000 simulations were run and an estimate of the community metabolism obtained in each iteration. The error in the final estimate was obtained from the probability distribution of these simulations. In each iteration a new equation was obtained by sampling a multivariate normal distribution with variance-covariance matrix equal to that of the model parameters in the initial fit. The metabolic rate of each individual was calculated using this new equation and a random normal deviate was added to each estimate. 40 CHAPTER 3: LATITUDINAL VARIATION IN PLANKTON SIZE SPECTRA IN THE ATLANTIC 3.1 Introduction 3.1.1 Atlantic Ocean Circulation The basin scale circulation of the Atlantic Ocean involves two large gyres located in the northern and southern hemispheres (Fig. 3.1). The northern gyre rotates clockwise and the southern gyre rotates anticlockwise. The flow in the western limbs (western boundary currents) is intensified by the latitudinal changes of the Coriolis force, while the flow is relatively weak in the gyres’ eastern parts. The northern gyre is weakly established from the winter to the spring period and reaches its maximum in the autumn (Finenko et al. 2003). Both gyres are characterised by a deep pycnocline at their centre and strong horizontal gradients of temperature and salinity at the fringes owing to pycnocline outcropping. Upwelling occurs in areas of divergence such as the equatorial zone and by wind driven currents that flow away from continents, such as off the west coast of Africa (Fig 3.1). Northern gyre Southern gyre Figure 3.1. Major surface currents and upwelling zones of the Atlantic Ocean. The red arrows denote the warm water currents and the blue arrows are colder water currents. Dashed areas indicate regions of upwelling. 41 The subtropical gyres of the world are extensive regions that occupy about 40% of the surface of the Earth. They have conventionally been thought of as homogenous and static habitats. However, there is increasing evidence that they exhibit considerable physical and biological variability on a variety of time scales (Rodríguez and Mullin 1986a; Marañón et al. 2001; McClain et al. 2004). Although productivity within these oligotrophic regions may be low (Karl et al. 1996; Marañón et al. 2000), their large size makes their total contribution significant. Nutrients can be supplied to the euphotic zone through a number of processes. These include Ekman transport (Williams et al. 2000) and eddy upwelling (McGillicuddy et al. 1998), the action of propagating planetary waves (Uz et al. 2001), convective overturning (Gregg et al. 2003) and mixing (Williams et al. 2000), as well as atmospheric deposition (Cornell et al. 1995; Jickells et al. 2005). However, central subtropical gyres are areas where nutrient supply is minimal and concentrations of nutrients and biomass are characteristically low throughout the year. Studies using SeaWIFS ocean-colour data over a 6 year period have observed that the northern gyres were expanding, whilst those of the South Pacific, South Atlantic and South Indian Ocean gyres showed weaker and less consistent trends (McClain et al. 2004). 3.1.2 Oceanic provinces The oceans can be partitioned into regions according to a variety of characteristics. Longhurst (1998) developed a system of biogeochemical biomes and provinces throughout the world oceans, based on production regimes derived from satellite imagery. According to his approach, eight different biogeochemical provinces were sampled during the AMT 12-14 cruises and a further two on the Marine Productivity (MarProd) D262 cruise (Fig. 3.2). 42 ARCT SARC NADR NAST CNRY NATR WTRA SATL SSTC FKLD AMT 12 AMT 13 AMT 14 MarProd Figure 3.2. Location of the 82 AMT and 13 MarProd stations sampled and the oceanic provinces that were crossed according to the classification of Longhurst (1998): Southwest Atlantic Shelves (FKLD), South Subtropical Convergence (SSTC), South Atlantic Gyre (SATL), Western Tropical Atlantic (WTRA), Eastern Coastal Boundary (CNRY), North Atlantic Tropical Gyre (NATR), North Atlantic Subtropical Gyre (NAST), North Atlantic Drift (NADR), Subarctic (SARC) and Arctic (ARCT). The map originates from the Ocean Data View programme (Schlitzer 2003). Oceanographic regions of the Atlantic Ocean have also been defined from the photosynthetic pigment distribution analysed at each station by High Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC). These data were obtained from BODC and using PRIMER, a cluster analysis was applied to the fourth-root transformed, Bray-Curtis similarity matrix to identify groupings of similar pigment distribution. Only the dendogram of AMT 12 is shown here as the other two cruises showed similar results (Fig. 3.3). Five clusters were identified at the 83% similarity level. Longhurst’s 43 provinces were assigned to each cluster of latitudes. The regions identified by this method were found to be not as well spatially defined as Longhurst’s (1998) biogeochemical system of categorisation. For example, the northern and southern gyres were indistinguishable and, thus, could not be compared. It was therefore decided to adopt Longhurst’s (1998) established approach to investigate how community size structure changes in each of the oceanographic regions in the Atlantic Ocean. Woodd-Walker (Woodd-Walker 2000; 2001) used multidimensional scaling (MDS) to identify zoogeographic regions in her study of copepod genera in the Atlantic Ocean. She found only two major groups of similarity: The warm water stations, and the temperate and Benguela stations. Further analysis differentiated most of the regions, apart from the northern and southern pairs of temperate and subtropical regions. The ataxonomic approach of community biomass-size structure may provide a more effective way to observe spatial variability. Hence, MDS plots of the biomass-size distribution of depth-integrated 10-5000 μm plankton were constructed and assessed. Community size structure and biomass have been described as ecosystem indicators of climate variability (Karl et al. 2001) and will therefore be used in this chapter to assess spatial variability in the Atlantic Ocean. The range of oceanic provinces that are crossed on Atlantic Meridional Transects provides a strong basis to investigate plankton community size structure in contrasting regions. Table 3.1 provides a summary of how the nano-/microplankton and mesozooplankton community were sampled and analysed. The objectives of this chapter are to understand how spatial distributions of organisms vary according to body size. In particular: To observe spatial variation of plankton size structure in the Atlantic in relation to latitude and productivity To examine how the temporal effect of opposite and similar seasons influence the community size distribution 44 Similarity % Similarity NATR NATR 70 NAST 75 NAST 80 NATR 85 SATL 90 NAST 95 NATR 100 NATR 22.2 24.3 29.4 -20.5 26.5 32.7 30.3 27.2 21.4 33.6 -31.8 NAST SATL WTRA SATL NATR SATL SATL NATR NAST SATL -6.5 -26.1 15.4 -34.8 -29.5 12.2 36.7 -13.9 14.4 -16.6 NATR SATL WTRA NATR SATL NADR 8.5 19.1 -28.8 40.2 -40.2 -37.8 SSTC SSTC WTRA WTRA WTRA SATL 4.9 5.9 9.6 -9.5 -5.3 -34.1 WTRA SATL WTRA SATL -2.2 -24.9 18.0 -10.6 NATR SATL WTRA NADR NADR NADR NADR NADR SSTC FKLD SSTC 1.1 47.7 45.7 44.6 47.1 41.5 -43.2 -48.2 -44.4 -44.3 -36.9 SSTC SSTC Figure 3.3. Cluster analysis of the pigment distribution on AMT 12. Longhurst’s provinces are shown alongside each cluster of latitude (+ve ˚N). Five groups can be identified at 83% similarity. 45 NANO-/MICROPLANKTON AMT SAMPLE COLLECTION MarProd AMT (55, 33, 14, Chl. a max. 50-0 m depth 200-0 m 1, 0.1 %) ANALYSIS MarProd WP-2 200 μm nets CTD Niskin bottles 5 light levels DEPTHS MESOZOOPLANKTON FlowCAM 120-0 m CHN PVA PVA NB-S SPECTRA DISCRETE Y N N N N DEPTH-INTEGRATED Y Y N Y Y (50-0 M) Estimated from volume BIOMASS (Menden-Deuer and Measured Lessard 2000) directly Estimated from volume (Alcaraz et al. 2003) ABUNDANCE Y Y N Y Y MEAN SIZE (ESD) Y Y N Y Y Table 3.1. A summary of the methods used to observe the community size structure on the AMT and MarProd cruises. Key for data availability is Y for yes and N for no. 3.2 Large scale changes in community size structure 3.2.1 Vertical structure Nano- to microplankton NB-S spectra In order to explore the depth variation in the size structure of the nano-/microplankton community in the AMT, the results were presented as plots of NB-S slopes versus depth and latitude with superimposed temperature contours (Fig. 3.4i). Mixed layer depth (MLD) profiles were also presented below each contour plot (Fig. 3.4ii). The highly variable vertical structure of the slopes of nano-/microplankton NB-S spectra did not appear to show any particular trend with depth. On AMT 12, there was an area of more negative slopes (ca. -1.2) below approximately 70 m in the southern high latitudes and gyre (45-20˚S), which extended down to 140-160 m, indicating a community dominated by the smaller size fractions. This was absent on AMT 13 but apparent again, and more pronounced, on AMT 14. There did not appear to be a clear 46 relationship between the size structure of the microbial community and the vertical temperature distribution, apart from a few regions where the slopes above and below the thermocline showed sharp changes. Also, the MLD imposed some, although inconsistent, constraint on the size structure of the community. For example, the NB-S slope was sometimes different by at least a value of 0.2 above and below the base of the MLD. This was particularly true in the southern latitudes of the AMT 12 and 14 transect (45˚S-20˚N). However, a two-sample T-test found no significant difference between the mean nano-/microplankton NB-S slopes above and below the MLD (T125 = -1.83, p>0.07). Depth (m) 0 -0.6 -100 -0.8 -1 -1.2 -200 -1.4 a.i.) -1.6 MLD (m) 0 100 a.ii.) 200 -50 -40 -30 -20 -10 0 10 Latitude (+ve ˚N) Figure 3.4. Continues over page. 47 20 30 40 50 NB-S slope Depth (m) 0 -100 -200 b.i.) MLD (m) 0 100 200 b.ii.) Depth (m) 0 -100 -200 c.i.) MLD (m) 0 100 c.ii.) 200 -50 -40 -30 -20 -10 0 10 20 30 40 50 Latitude (+ve ˚N) Figure 3.4. Latitudinal variation in i) the vertical structure of discrete nano/microplankton NB-S slopes with superimposed temperature (˚C) contours in black and ii) the depth of the mixed layer on AMT a) 12, b) 13 and c) 14. Blue areas indicate regions with more negative NB-S slopes and red areas show the regions with shallower NB-S slopes. Mixed layer depths (MLD) were calculated using the Brunt-Vaisala method (Pond and Pickard 1981) and were kindly provided by Chris Lowe (PML). 48 There was no apparent pattern in the mean vertical structure of slopes of nano/microplankton spectra across the different oceanic provinces on AMT (Fig. 3.5). Apart from the temperate zones (FKLD and NADR) the mean slopes of spectra were shallower below the chlorophyll maximum (~1% light depth) in all the other regions. 100 log "depths" (% light level). FKLD SSTC SATL 10 WTRA CNRY NATR NAST 1 NADR 0.1 -1.8 -1.6 -1.4 -1.2 -1 -0.8 -0.6 -0.4 -0.2 Slope (b) Figure 3.5. All the depth profiles from AMT 12-14 of discrete nano-/microplankton NBS slopes plotted against percentage light level (55%, 33%, 14%, 1%, and 0.1%). The mean vertical profile of the slopes for each of the oceanic provinces has been plotted as a line graph. % Light depth 55 33 14 1 0.1 Slope (b) -1.00 -0.99 -0.98 -1.00 -0.90 (0.20) (0.21) (0.21) (0.23) (0.21) Intercept (a) 12.17 11.99 11.93 12.02 10.55 (1.67) (1.73) (1.76) (1.82) (2.02) r2 n 0.842 0.858 0.852 0.844 0.809 80 81 80 81 80 Table 3.2. Mean parameters of the least-squares (model 1) regression of the NB-S model log2 (Bm/∆m) = a + b log2 m for each % light level (n = number of stations). Standard deviations are in brackets next to the mean. As a result of the high variability in individual profiles, the average parameters of the NB-S spectra across regions on AMT 12-14 were calculated, which reveal more distinct features (Table 3.2). The mean steepness of the nano-/microplankton slope is relatively constant with depth (-0.98 to -1.00) until it reaches the deepest 0.1% light level where it becomes significantly shallower (mean of -0.90, p<0.001). The y-intercept of the linear 49 fit of a NB-S spectrum is considered to be an indicator of the total abundance when slopes are equal (Platt and Denman 1978). Although the slopes ranged from -0.40 to 1.66, the y-intercept plotted versus abundance, had a significant correlation coefficient (Fig. 3.6). Hence, the y-intercept was a reliable estimator of abundance even though log (abundance) the discrete slopes were highly variable. 3 2 1 5 7 9 11 13 15 17 y-intercept Figure 3.6. Regression of nano-/microplankton abundance (cells ml-1) against the yintercepts of the linear fits to discrete NB-S spectra. The straight line is the logarithmic regression fitted to these data [log(y) = 0.09x – 0.98, r2 = 0.31, F405 = 180.30, p<0.001]. The standard deviation about the regression line is 0.26. 3.2.2 Latitudinal variation Community NB-S spectra There is some latitudinal pattern in the parameters of community (nano- to mesoplankton) size spectra (Fig. 3.7, Table 3.3). On the AMT cruises, the steepest (1.26) and shallowest (-0.93) slopes were found in the subtropical convergence zone (SSTC) and equatorial upwelling region (WTRA) respectively. The steepest (-1.46) and shallowest (-1.12) slopes on the MarProd cruise were found at the Greenland shelfbreak and the Irminger Sea in the arctic province respectively. A direct comparison between the AMT and MarProd datasets is not possible because of the difference in the depth range from which the data were integrated (50-0 and 120-0 m on AMT and MarProd cruises respectively). The MarProd data have, nevertheless, been incorporated in the figures and tables to set them more in the basin-scale context of the Atlantic for descriptive purposes. They were, however, excluded from statistical 50 analyses. A one-way ANOVA test showed that the slopes (F75 = 3.97, p<0.001) were significantly different in oceanic provinces on the AMT. -0.7 FKLD SSTC SATL WTRA NATR NAST NADR AMT 12 AMT 13 ARCT/SARC AMT 14 CNRY Slope -0.9 MarProd -1.1 -1.3 -1.5 -60 -40 -20 0 20 40 60 80 Latitude (+ve ˚N) Figure 3.7. The latitudinal pattern of AMT (50-0 m) and MarProd (120-0 m) depthintegrated NB-S slopes of nano- to mesozooplankton in each oceanic province. The standard error bars of the slopes are shown. Cruise AMT MarProd Oceanic Province FKLD SSTC SATL WTRA CNRY NATR NAST NADR SARC ARCT Slope (b) -1.13 -1.10 -1.08 -1.00 -0.99 -1.06 -1.12 -1.13 -1.29 -1.27 (0.10) (0.11) (0.06) (0.05) (0.01) (0.07) (0.09) (0.09) (0.002) (0.11) y-intercept (a) 5.55 5.57 4.68 7.03 8.44 5.45 4.68 5.96 5.75 5.12 (2.11) (1.89) (0.88) (0.83) (0.52) (1.02) (1.24) (1.52) (2.12) (1.58) r2 0.978 0.989 0.987 0.989 0.987 0.989 0.990 0.988 0.979 0.961 Table 3.3. Mean parameters of depth-integrated community (10-4300μm) NB-S slopes for each oceanic province on the AMT (50-0 m) and the MarProd cruises (120-0 m). Standard deviations are given in brackets next to the means. 51 A Tukey test was then employed to carry out a multiple comparison (Zar 1999). The only significant differences in the oceanic provinces on the AMT were found between the slopes of plankton size spectra in the equatorial upwelling (WTRA) and the northern gyre (NAST), as well as between the WTRA and the temperate regions (SSTC and NADR). The slopes were significantly shallower in the WTRA compared to these other regions. In order to examine these differences, stations from the three cruises were grouped into two categories: Stations from upwelling regions (WTRA and CNRY) and stations from downwelling or convergent zones (FKLD, SSTC, SATL, NATR, NAST and NADR). A one-way ANOVA revealed significant differences between the slopes (F75 = 19.90, p<0.001) of both groups, with steeper slopes in the second group. Furthermore, a significant regression was found between latitude and the slopes of the plankton community on the AMT (Fig. 3.8). -0.8 Slope -1 -1.2 -1.4 AMT MarProd -1.6 0 20 40 60 80 Latitude (± ˚N/S) Figure 3.8. Relationship between latitude and depth-integrated nano- to mesozooplankton NB-S slopes. The straight line is the least-squares regression fitted to the AMT data alone [y = -0.003x – 0.99, r2 = 0.27, F77 = 28.74, p<0.001]. From the MDS of the nano- to mesozooplankton biomass-size distribution on all the three AMT cruises it is evident that there is a gradient shaping the community structure (Fig. 3.9a). The stress coefficient indicates how faithfully the high-dimensional relationships among the samples are represented in the 2-d ordination plot. A stress of 0.13 gives a potentially useful ordination. The MDS by biomass-size structure (Fig. 3.9b) showed a clear distinction between temperate (NADR and FKLD) and gyre stations (SATL, NATR and NAST). The upwelling stations (CNRY and WTRA) were slightly separate to the left of the main cluster and branched into both the temperate and gyre areas. 52 a.) FKLD SSTC SATL WTRA CNRY NATR NAST NADR b.) AMT 12 AMT 13 AMT 14 c.) Figure 3.9. Multidimensional scaling (MDS) ordination of size fractionated (10-5000 μm) plankton biomass (mg C m-2) integrated from 50-0 m on AMT 12-14 with superimposed a) total biomass as bubble plots with latitudes shown b) oceanic provinces and c) cruises using a Bray-Curtis similarity matrix and root transform. Distance between points shows the relative similarity in community size structure. 53 Mesozooplankton size structure There was no clear latitudinal trend in the percentage contribution of mesozooplankton abundance in each size class to total abundance in the upper 200 m (Fig. 3.10). The abundance in the smallest size fraction dominated having on average 69% of the total abundance compared to 25 and 6% represented by the 500-1000 μm and >1000 μm classes respectively. Although the proportions in each size class were quite consistent, there was some variability. AMT 12 AMT 13 AMT 14 MarProd Mean >1000 μm 60 40 20 0 -60 -40 -20 60 0 20 40 60 80 40 60 80 40 60 80 500-1000 μm % 40 20 0 -60 -40 -20 100 0 20 200-500 μm 80 60 40 20 0 -60 -40 -20 0 20 Latitude (+ve ˚N) Figure 3.10. Percentage of total mesozooplankton abundance in each size fraction in 200-0 and 120-0 m for AMT 12-14 and MarProd cruises respectively. The line is the moving average between each data point. Note the change in scale. 54 The largest size class, for example, showed a slight peak in percentage abundance contribution at the Mauritanian upwelling station at 21°N on AMT 13 as a result of a dominance in pelagic gastropods (Fig. 3.11a). The smallest fraction was consistently numerically dominant apart from a high latitude station in the arctic region where the largest size fraction prevailed due to a high abundance of large (>3 mm) copepods (Fig. 3.11b). An increase in size with latitudinal trend was identified: In the polar and subpolar seas the largest fraction, although very variable in its contribution to total population abundance became more important, particularly in the high northern latitudes. The contribution of the smallest fraction remained high and generally stable in the arctic regions but weakened in the medium 500-1000 μm fraction. a.) b.) Figure 3.11. Scanned images from a) the Mauritenean upwelling station at 21˚N on AMT 13 and b) the arctic station in the Irminger Sea at 61˚N on the MarProd cruise. Magnification 4x. 55 The mean size of mesozooplankton (ESD) measured by the PVA showed a definite pattern on the AMT (Fig. 3.12). Elevated mean ESD at either end of all the AMT transects (337-550 μm) was followed by a decline in the oligotrophic gyres (186-410 μm) and a slight increase around the equator (262-456 μm). One of the stations in the northern gyre on AMT 12 showed a significant decline in mean ESD (186 μm). The mean mesozooplankton size was highly variable in the high northern latitudes on the MarProd (313-878 μm) and spanned almost the entire range of sizes found on the AMT Average ESD (μm) (186-550 μm). AMT 12 600 AMT 13 AMT 14 MarProd 400 200 0 -60 -20 20 60 Latitude (+ve ˚N) Figure 3.12. Latitudinal variation in mean mesozooplankton equivalent spherical diameter (ESD) in the upper 50 m on AMT 12-14 and upper 120 m on MarProd. Total biomass and abundance The total mesozooplankton carbon biomass measured directly with the CHN analyser showed a consistent pattern on the AMT in the upper 200 and 50 m (Fig. 3.13). The highest biomass was found in the equatorial region (1242 mg C m-2) in 200-0 m and in the NADR (581 mg C m-2) in 50-0 m. The lowest biomass observed in the upper 200 m was in the two oligotrophic gyres (44 mg C m-2 and 100 mg C m-2 in SATL and NATR/NAST respectively). Although slightly more variable, the same was true for the upper 50 m (16.5-240 mg C m-2). This excludes the station close to the African upwelling on AMT 13 with higher mesozooplankton carbon in the top 200 m (1000 mg C m-2). Higher carbon estimates were found at either end of the transect at latitudes greater than 40˚. There are no carbon measurements for the North Atlantic on AMT 14 because all the stations located above 38˚ were dominated by large crustacean and gelatinous zooplankton, which could not be sub-sampled effectively (Fig. 3.14). 56 Mesozooplankton biomass . (mg C m-2) AMT 12 a.) 1200 AMT 13 AMT 14 800 400 0 -60 -40 -20 0 20 -40 -20 0 20 Latitude (+ve ˚N) 40 60 b.) (mg C m ) 600 500 -2 Mesozooplankton biomass. 700 400 300 200 100 0 -60 40 60 Figure 3.13. The variation in total mesozooplankton carbon from a) 200-0 m and b) 500 m nets on the AMT. b.) a.) Figure 3.14. Scanned images from the northern temperate stations on AMT 14 at a) 42˚N and b) 49˚N, which were analysed using the Plankton Visual Analyser (PVA). Note how they are dominated by large chaetognaths, euphausids and salps, and have a very low abundance of copepods. Magnification 0.5x. 57 Plankton (10-130μm) biomass, estimated by FlowCAM size frequency analysis, was integrated to 50 m depth to make comparable with the PVA mesozooplankton (2005000 μm) biomass estimates in mg C m-2. Mesozooplankton biomass followed a similar pattern on the AMT transects: Elevated biomass estimates each end of the transect in the temperate regions, low biomass in the gyres and high biomass at the equator and off the west coast of Africa on AMT 13 (Fig. 3.15a.i, Table 3.4). 6 AMT 12 -2 Z (g C m ) a.i.) AMT 13 AMT 14 4 MarProd 2 0 a.ii.) -2 N-/M (g C m ) 1000 10 200 b.i.) 3 -2 Z (x10 m ) 0.1 100 b.ii.) 9 -2 N-/M (x10 m ) 0 100 1 -60 -20 20 60 Latitude (+ve ˚N) Figure 3.15. Latitudinal variation in a) estimated biomass and b) abundance of (i) mesozooplankton (Z) and (ii) nano-/microplankton (N-/M) integrated over the upper 50 m and 120 m on AMT 12-14 and MarProd respectively. 58 Although, not directly comparable to the AMT data because of the difference in depth integration, biomass was very variable and sometimes very high off southwest Iceland on the MarProd cruise (0.1 – 5.1 g C m-2 and 5.9 – 152.7 g C m-2 for mesozooplankton and nano-/microplankton respectively). Mesozooplankton abundance followed a distribution close to that of biomass on the AMT (Fig. 3.15b.i). This was not the case though on the MarProd cruise, where there were lower and less variable counts in the subarctic and arctic provinces. Abundance of nano-/microplankton did not vary much throughout the AMT (1.1 – 35.5 × 109 m-2) and was slightly elevated either side of the transect in the temperate regions. These densities were comparatively high and variable in the northern Atlantic on the MarProd (19.0 – 450.0 × 109 m-2). However, the higher counts and biomass may have partially been due to the fact that the MarProd nano-/microplankton samples were only collected from the chlorophyll a maximum. Oceanic Province Biomass Abundance Size -ESD Z (g C m-2) N-/M (g C m-2) Z (ind x103 m-2) N-/M (ind x109 m-2) Z (μm) FKLD 1.02 (0.61) 5.41 (2.91) 32.62 (37.63) 5.15 (2.29) 478 (102) SSTC 1.04 (1.45) 2.81 (1.62) 44.16 (47.53) 5.28 (2.79) 427 (43) SATL 0.38 (0.20) 1.25 (1.03) 15.95 (6.21) 3.83 (1.27) 342 (38) WTRA 1.88 (0.92) 1.65 (0.94) 70.48 (34.33) 10.72 (2.55) 365 (46) CNRY 4.72 (1.20) 3.41 (1.73) 135.45 (30.50) 4.09 (3.32) 375 (10) NATR 0.75 (0.50) 2.26 (4.08) 22.11 (7.32) 7.33 (1.94) 378 (48) NAST 0.43 (0.30) 3.98 (4.99) 38.31 (27.38) 3.19 (3.69) 320 (56) NADR 1.69 (1.47) 6.59 (4.75) 80.82 (55.06) 4.47 (10.45) 385 (45) SARC 1.80 (1.96) 81.79 (100.23) 65.80 (93.41) 104.15 (93.41) 376 (89) ARCT 1.92 (1.73) 31.39 (24.16) 23.11 (128.89) 103.56 (128.89) 505 (155) Table 3.4. Mean 50-0 m depth-integrated mesozooplankton (Z) and nano/microplankton (N-/M) biomass, abundance and size (ESD) for each oceanic province. The standard deviations are shown in brackets. 59 3.3 Comparison between cruises 3.3.1 AMT 12 and 14 AMT 12 and 14 coincided with the boreal spring (May-June 2003 and April-June 2004), characterised by high nano-/microplankton biomass (0.6 – 15.7 g C m-2) in temperate waters north of 36˚N (Fig. 3.15a.ii). Nano-/microplankton biomass was also high in the temperate southern Atlantic (>40˚S, 3.3 – 7.5 g C m-2) and in the region under the influence of the equatorial upwelling (0.6 – 15.7 g C m-2), though biomass in this latter region was highly variable. Biomass was very low, however, in both the northern (0.4 – 3.7 g C m-2) and southern (0.3 – 3.7 g C m-2) oligotrophic gyres. Mesozooplankton were most abundant (Fig. 3.15b.i) at high latitudes in the northern hemisphere (2.3 × 104 – 2.1 × 105 ind m-2), the equator (2.1 × 104 – 1.1 × 105 ind m-2) and the subtropical convergence (SSTC), and less abundant in the gyres (7.8 × 103 – 8.6 × 104 ind m-2) following a pattern similar to that of nano-/microplankton biomass. The mean mesozooplankton biomass and abundance in NADR waters (1.5 g C m-2 and 7.8 × 104 ind m-2 respectively) was more than double that in the corresponding SSTC waters in the South Atlantic (0.6 g C m-2 and 2.4 × 104 ind m-2). The general features in the 50-0 m depth-integrated biomass estimates (Fig. 3.15) showed consistency between cruises. Some differences were found in the latitudinal distribution of mesozooplankton biomass in the upper 200 m on AMT 12 and 14 (Fig. 3.13a). AMT 12 had much lower biomass estimates in the southern high latitudes and WTRA (132 – 180 mg C m-3 and 264 – 346 mg C m-2 respectively) than AMT 14 (722 – 734 mg C m-2 and 658 – 1242 mg C m-2). The 50-0 m mesozooplankton biomass measured directly with the CHN analyser (Fig. 3.13b) and the PVA biomass estimates (Fig. 3.15a.i) showed a similar spatial pattern between these cruises. The spatial structure of the plankton distribution on AMT 12 and 14, as shown by the MDS ordination, followed separate patterns along most of the transect (Fig. 3.9c). The gradient that can be seen clearly when the total biomass of the community is superimposed suggests that biomass was higher on AMT 12 compared to AMT 14 (Fig. 3.9a). The stations at each end of this gradient are a NADR station (47˚N) on AMT 12 and a southern gyre station (21˚S) on AMT 14. When the 50-0 m depth-integrated community NB-S slopes from AMT 12 and 14 were compared using one-way ANOVA, there was a significant difference in the slopes (F53 = 13.6, p<0.001) between both transects. Apart from the southern section of the northern gyre, NATR, all the provinces were found to be statistically similar (p>0.02). AMT 14 was slightly to the east of AMT 12 in this province (Fig. 3.2) and may have 60 been more affected by the African coastal upwelling or by aeolian transport of nutrients (Cornell et al. 1995; Jickells et al. 2005) . 3.3.2 AMT 13 The AMT 13 cruise track was different in that it occurred during the austral spring (September/October 2003) and went into the African upwelling, avoiding most of the northern gyre (Fig. 3.2). Stations in this upwelling (CNRY) had particularly elevated mesozooplankton biomass in the upper 200 m (Fig. 3.13a). The depth-integrated biomass and abundance of mesozooplankton showed a similar pattern with values as high as 5.6 g C m-2 and 1.6 × 105 ind m-2 respectively (Fig. 3.15). Nano-/microplankton biomass and abundance, however, showed somewhat less pronounced peaks in this region (4.6 g C m-2 and 9.9 × 109 ind m-2 respectively). Seasonal/spatial variability Seasonal phytoplankton and mesozooplankton cycles are not well developed in tropical regions (Finenko et al. 2003). Temperate regions, however, exhibit a greater seasonality than the lower latitudes with the occurrence of the spring and, less pronounced, autumn phytoplankton bloom. This spatial component seems to be evident in the slopes of discrete plankton size spectra (Fig. 3.4), with steeper slopes in southern latitude regions (SSTC) at depths greater than 60 m in the austral autumn (AMT 12 and 14) and shallower slopes accordingly in the austral spring (AMT 13). However, there was no apparent difference between slopes of different seasons in the northern temperate zone. Mesozooplankton biomass in the top 200-0 and 50-0 m (Fig 3.13) was lower in the northern temperate zone, NADR, on AMT 13 (2.03-3.16 mg C m3 and 2.78-5.47 mg C m-3 respectively) than on AMT 12 (2.33-3.61 mg C m-3 and 3.76- 11.61 mg C m-3). From the MDS ordination of the community size structure there did not appear to be much difference between the spatial structure of AMT 12/14 combined and AMT 13 (Fig. 3.8c). Furthermore, the entire AMT 13 cruise did not differ significantly in depth-integrated community NB-S slopes from those of AMT 12 and 14 combined (F77 = 2.03, p>0.16). The only region that did show a slight difference was the subtropical convergence zone, SSTC (p<0.05). 61 3.4 Discussion 3.4.1 Latitude Mesozooplankton biomass between 50˚N and 50˚S was high around the equator and at high latitudes (>40˚) and lowest in the oligotrophic gyres. Above 60˚N, biomass was high but very variable. The inverse relationship between mesozooplankton biomass and the depth of the thermocline described by Le Borgne (1981) in the Gulf of Guinea, and found on AMT 11 (Isla et al. 2004) seems to be the case here also (Fig. 3.4, 3.13, 3.15). Although the PVA method uses carbon conversion factors (Alcaraz et al. 2003) which overestimate the carbon content of gelatinous zooplankton, the biomass of the net samples were comparable to previous measurements made on the AMT (Isla et al. 2004), a Biogeochemical Ocean Flux Study (BOFS, UK) in the North Atlantic in July 1989 (O'Brien 2005) and a UK PRIME cruise at 37˚N, 19˚W in July 1996 (Head et al. 1999), even though the latter estimates were integrated over the upper 100 m rather than 50-0 m as reported here. Mesozooplankton abundance and percentage contribution in each size fraction on AMT 12-14 was within the range found on AMT 4-6 cruises (Woodd-Walker 2000; Huskin et al. 2001b; Woodd-Walker 2001) and similar to those found at 46°N to 50°N on a BOFS cruise in Spring 1990 (Morales et al. 1993). The size of mesozooplankton, indicated by the proportion in each size class collected from 200 m net samples, showed some trend with latitude, where the contribution of the larger size fraction became more important at higher latitudes (Fig. 3.10). MDS plots of plankton biomass-size structure did not show strong latitudinal groupings. Woodd-Walker (2000) suggested that size structure was not as sensitive a measure of community structure as taxonomy. Nonetheless, a gradient in the size structure associated with total biomass, which is an indicator of productivity across large scale areas, was evident. No clear clusters of provinces were identified though, suggesting that oceanic provinces did not define the factors controlling the gradient in community size structure in the Atlantic Ocean. The latitudinal distribution in mean mesozooplankton ESD illustrates the lower mesozooplankton sizes in the gyres, consistent with previous studies (Piontkovski and van der Spoel 1997; Woodd-Walker 2001). Furthermore, values in the northern temperate region (340-480 μm ESD) fell within the range found by Gallienne et al. (2001) at similar latitudes in the northeast Atlantic Ocean. Mean mesozooplankton size was larger in areas of high phytoplankton and mesozooplankton biomass (Fig. 3.12, 3.13a, 3.15a). 62 There are allometric models that relate the growth or production of marine copepods to their size, in body weight, and a range of easily measurable parameters, such as in situ temperature, chlorophyll a, or size distributed biomass (Huntley and Lopez 1992; Hirst and Lampitt 1998; Hirst and Bunker 2003). Larger mesozooplankton tend to have lower weight-specific growth rates. Also, increasing temperatures lead to higher growth rates. Hence, it was unsurprising to find smaller-sized mesozooplankton in the warmer waters of the Atlantic oligotrophic gyres. Furthermore, given that these areas generally exhibit low levels of chlorophyll a, it is likely that mesozooplankton found here were foodlimited, and therefore unable to reach their maximum potential growth rate and size. The unimodal, or “dome-shaped”, relationship between the slopes of plankton community spectra and latitude (Fig. 3.7), was similar to global biodiversity patterns of a number of marine species (Kaustuv et al. 1998; Santelices and Marquet 1998; Kaustuv et al. 2000; Woodd-Walker 2001). One of the suggested mechanisms for these patterns is associated with increased seasonality at higher latitudes causing a change in the trophic stability as a result of the uncoupling between primary and secondary productivity and a shift to a resource (bottom-up) controlled plankton food web. Furthermore, this “dome-shaped” pattern was comparable to the similar inverted distribution of nano-/microplankton biomass and density (Fig. 3.15), the former of which is a proxy for primary production (Joint and Pomroy 1988), but contrasts the distribution presented by mesozooplankton biomass, abundance and mean ESD between 50˚N to 50˚S. The slopes of 50-0 m depth-integrated, AMT community spectra ranged from -0.93 to 1.26. The 120-0 m depth-integrated community NB-S slopes from the MarProd cruise ranged from -1.12 to -1.46. The difference in the depth to which both cruise samples were integrated could affect the degree of the slope. The greater depth (120-0 m) of the MarProd cruise samples is likely to include more mesozooplankton relative to nano/microplankton compared to the shallower depth (50-0 m) of the AMT. Hence, merging the data would produce a comparatively shallower, less negative slope for the MarProd cruise samples. Furthermore, the fact that only the chlorophyll a maximum was sampled for nano-/microplankton on the MarProd cruise may have resulted in an overestimation of phytoplankton counts after integration with depth, increasing the negativity of the slope. Nevertheless, the average slopes of both the AMT (-1.07) and MarProd datasets (-1.10) were slightly shallower than the theoretical value of -1.22 predicted by the model (Platt and Denman 1978), which characterises oceanic pelagic systems when biomass is expressed in carbon units. It is close but shallower again when compared to the biomass against biovolume relationship described for open 63 ocean spectra by Sheldon et al. (1972) after its normalisation and conversion to carbon units (-1.16) as well as the mean value of -1.15 found by Quiñones et al. (2003) and 1.16 (Rodríguez and Mullin 1986a) for the North Atlantic and North Pacific oligotrophic gyres respectively. Open ocean communities can be assumed to be close to steady state. Major predatorprey interactions are confined to the upper mixed layer with minimal influence of benthic or onshore processes, prey are generally constant proportions of their predators size and specific growth and ecological efficiencies of organisms are weight dependent (Kerr 1974; Platt and Denman 1978; Sprules and Munawar 1986). However, both of the mean slopes of all the community in the Atlantic from the AMT and MarProd datasets suggest that the community is not in “equilibrium” whereby biomass is roughly distributed uniformly over logarithmic size classes. The sampling stations took place during the night to incorporate the vertically migrating mesozooplankton into the analysis. It is possible, however, that only integrating to 50-0 m on the AMT may have excluded some of the mesozooplankton that do not migrate to the surface causing a disequilibrium in the spectrum. It is only the larger mesozooplankton (>1000 μm) that have been found to be significant in the active diel vertical migration in the Atlantic (Gallienne et al. 2001). Including these larger sizes would have, therefore, produced an even shallower community slope further from equilibrium. Nevertheless, the shallower average slope that was obtained across the Atlantic reflects a higher proportion of large organisms in relation to the smaller ones. Community NB-S slopes characterise the efficiency of energy or biomass transfer through the spectrum and up the trophic food web (Gaedke 1993). Hence, this shallow overall slope indicates that there is more biomass being transferred up the spectrum and more carbon being made available to higher trophic levels than would be expected at equilibrium. The shallower community slopes found in the upwelling areas compared to downwelling regions as illustrated in Figure 3.7 are in agreement with the observations made by Piontkovski et al. (2003a) between divergence (upwelling) and convergence (downwelling) zones of the eastern tropical Atlantic. However, the latitudinal distribution of community slopes appeared to have an inverse relationship to the distribution of phytoplankton biomass (Fig. 3.16). This suggests a higher transfer efficiency between trophic levels in the marine food web in unproductive areas, which recent grazing studies in the oligotrophic open ocean have shown (Calbet and Landry 1999; Huskin et al. 2001b). Thus, further analysis of relations between plankton size spectra and productivity will be carried out in Chapter 4 to elucidate this contradiction. 64 One important aspect that remains to be investigated is whether the inclusion of picoplankton, that were found to dominate biomass and productivity on previous AMT cruises (Marañón et al. 2001), would change the relationships we find. In Chapter 4 picoplankton counts on AMT 12-14 provided by Dr Mike Zubkov and Jane Heywood (NOC) will be incorporated into the plankton size spectrum to observe how the inclusion of this component of the community affects the slope. -0.8 Slope -1 -1.2 -1.4 AMT MarProd -1.6 0.1 1 10 100 N-/M (g C m-2) Figure 3.16. Relationship between nano-/microplankton (N-/M) biomass and NB-S slopes of depth-integrated community over the upper 50 m and 120 m along AMT 1214 and MarProd respectively. The straight line is a logarithmic regression fitted to the AMT data alone [y = -0.05log(x) - 1.05, r2 = 0.29, F77 = 30.14, p<0.001]. 3.4.2 Vertical structure The vertical distribution of slopes of nano-/microplankton community size spectra, which were composed mainly of phytoplankton but also of microzooplankton, sometimes reflected the temperature structure, particularly at the thermocline where there were often also sharp changes in the slopes of size spectra (Fig. 3.4). The thermocline has traditionally been considered an ecological barrier to plankton diversity (Longhurst 1985) and may cause different communities to develop with respect to size above, below and within it. However, this is not always the case, as is evident from the well-mixed and uniform temperature depth profiles of the northern and southern high latitudes (>35-40˚N and S) where there are strong gradients in plankton size structure. The ocean mixed layer is generally considered a homogenous region in the upper ocean where there is little variation in temperature or density with depth (Kara et al. 2000). Although changes in MLD have a profound effect on productivity, such as the onset of vertical stratification in the northern temperate spring, which stimulates primary productivity, no consistent effect on the slopes of plankton size spectra could be 65 identified. Unfortunately, the vertical profiles were not sampled at sufficient resolution to determine small-scale physical effects on the community size structure. There was no obvious relationship between provinces and vertical structure of the slopes of normalised biomass-size spectra of nano-/microplankton. However, it is interesting to note that the only oceanic provinces to exhibit a different community size character below the 1% light depth were the northern temperate regions, FKLD and NADR (Fig. 3.5). This suggests that there is even less efficient transfer of biomass in the reduced size range of the discrete spectrum, i.e. between phytoplankton and microzooplankton, at depth in higher latitudes. Although the mean parameters of nano-/microplankton NB-S spectra are an aggregation of all the data collected on AMT they provide more evidence of a trend with depth (Table 3.2). The slight shift toward shallower slopes and importance of larger nano-/microplankton cell sizes below the chlorophyll maximum (1% light level) was also observed by Gin et al. (1999). Shallower slopes are characterised by a higher mean cell size of phytoplankton and microzooplankton (Fig. 3.17). This shift, therefore, could reflect the tendency for larger cells to sink out of a stratified water column. 18 17 mean ESD 16 15 14 13 12 11 -1.5 -1.0 -0.5 slope Figure 3.17. Regression between mean nano-/microplankton ESD (μm) and discrete nano-/microplankton NB-S slopes. The straight line is the least-squares (model 1) regression fitted to these data [y = 3.24x + 16.70, r2 = 0.52, F405 = 434.57, p<0.001]. The standard deviation about the regression line is 0.66. 3.4.3 Seasonality It is difficult to interpret the seasonal component along the AMT as the transects only take place twice a year in two opposing seasons: Boreal spring and autumn. In general 66 though, this analysis has indicated that the seasonal dynamics of nano-/microplankton and mesozooplankton biomass were fairly similar in the subtropical and tropical provinces at these times of year. Finenko et al. (2003) describe the seasonal changes in primary production as well as phytoplankton and mesozooplankton biomass in the Atlantic Ocean from 40˚N to 40˚S. They found that seasonal changes in the tropical Atlantic were generally small, similar to those found on the AMT 12-14 cruises, and suggested that the amplitude of variations in biomass is greater in regions where nutrient enrichment takes place in the upper ocean. Consumer (top-down), control of the planktonic food web in oligotrophic systems by, for example, mesozooplankton grazing, has been suggested as one of the reasons for this steady state (Gilabert 2001; Huskin et al. 2001a). Seasonality was observed only in the subtropical convergence zone in the southern Atlantic. The shallower slopes during the austral spring compared to the autumn (Fig. 3.6) suggest there was a decrease in the transfer of biomass between phytoplankton and mesozooplankton in the latter season. This decrease in trophic transfer efficiency may lead to less potential C export to the deep ocean as well as less availability of organic matter to higher trophic levels. This seasonal trend fits Gilabert’s (2001) one-year time series of plankton size spectra slopes (nano- to mesoplankton) in a Mediterranean coastal lagoon. Chapter 5 will use a decadal time series to investigate the seasonal variation in plankton size spectra at the L4 coastal station off Plymouth. This will help to resolve seasonal variability in the transfer of energy between different trophic levels. 3.5 Conclusions Plankton size structure has proved a useful tool in the biogeographical analysis of marine pelagic ecosystems. This study shows that upwelling areas have very different community size spectra to gyre and temperate areas. Latitudinal pattern in the slopes of plankton size spectra suggests that there is a decrease in the efficiency of biomass or carbon transfer from phytoplankton (nano- to microplankton size range) to mesozooplankton from the equator to higher latitudes. It is suggested that changes in seasonal input, as well as variations in productivity, may affect the trophic transfer efficiency and coupling between phytoplankton and mesozooplankton. However, further research is necessary to validate the conflicting results in recent studies between coupling versus decoupling of primary and secondary producers in the oligotrophic ocean, and to determine the mechanisms, because both have very different consequences in ecological and biogeochemical terms. 67 CHAPTER 4: CAN THE SLOPE OF A PLANKTON SIZE SPECTRUM BE USED AS AN INDICATOR OF CARBON FLUX? 4.1 Introduction 4.1.1. Ocean carbon cycle Oceans have a major role in the global carbon cycle and directly influence the rate and extent of climate change (Falkowski et al. 2000). Biogeochemical cycling of carbon in the oceans is controlled by physical, chemical and biological processes, the latter of which this work focuses on (Fig. 4.1). The structure and function of plankton play a key part in oceanic carbon flux as a mechanism for the net marine sequestration of atmospheric CO2 (Karl et al. 2001) and eventual transfer to the deep ocean and benthos (Legendre and Le Fèvre 1991; Legendre and Rivkin 2002; Turner 2002). This drawdown of organic carbon is referred to as the biological pump. In ecological terms, the transfer of organic carbon up the food web supporting higher trophic levels, such as fish stocks, is also export from the primary production system. Figure 4.1. The oceanic carbon cycle. The biological pump (left box), controlled by the marine food web, and the solubility pump (right box), which is driven by chemical and physical processes. Note how only a small proportion of the photosynthetically fixed organic carbon that sinks out of the upper mixed layer is sequestered in the deep ocean. The majority is remineralised and released as CO2 back into the atmosphere. This figure was taken from Chisholm (2000). 68 Anthropogenic CO2 emissions can affect the growth of marine plankton, with subsequent impact on their role as a net source or sink of CO 2 to the atmosphere (Hays et al. 2005). The majority of the CO2 entering the atmosphere dissolves in the oceans, increasing dissolved CO2 and bicarbonate ion [HCO3-] concentration. This results in a lowering of seawater pH and carbonate ion [CO32-] concentration. In other words, the ratio of [HCO3-] to [CO32-], which is dependent on the ambient temperature, determines the CO2 concentration of seawater. Primary production uses CO2 dissolved in seawater to fix organic carbon and, hence, provides a sink for atmospheric CO 2: CO2 + H2O CH2O + O2 However, respiration, which is the reverse reaction of photosynthesis, by phytoplankton and heterotrophic pelagic organisms acts as a source of CO2. Furthermore, the production of calcium carbonate, i.e. calcification by coccolithophorids, causes an increase in CO2 and, therefore acts as a potential source of CO2 to the atmosphere. Calcification uses bicarbonate instead of CO2 so that: Ca2+ + 2HCO3- = CaCO3 + CO2 + H2O The ecological and biogeochemical interactions among plankton, seawater chemistry and the ultimate fate of photosynthetically fixed organic carbon are complex. Plankton mediated carbon export from surface waters is dependent on the plankton abundancesize structure and transfer up the trophic web (Chisholm 2000). Hence, plankton size spectra may be a useful approach to understand the factors affecting carbon flux. 4.1.2 Trophic transfer efficiency Abundance-size distributions provide a tool for ecosystem analysis as a result of the relationships between body mass and metabolic activity and between body mass and related ecological properties of pelagic organisms, such as seasonality (Gaedke 1993). The normalised biomass-size (NB-S) spectrum considers the biomass flux to larger organisms as a continuous transfer of energy (Platt and Denman 1978) and relies on empirically established scaling relationships between body mass and metabolic processes (Fenchel 1974). Thus, plankton size spectra reveal an interaction between physiological characteristics of individual organisms and community structure. The slope, for example, can be interpreted as a cascade of energy between trophic levels. The steeper the slope of the double-log plot the larger the trophic step and the more energy lost in the transfer from smaller and more abundant primary producers to larger and less dominant secondary consumers (Brown and Gillooly 2003). In this way, the 69 slope of the NB-S spectrum indicates the efficiency of biomass transfer to larger organisms (Gaedke 1993). Primary production in oceanic oligotrophic areas is dominated by picoplankton (Agawin et al. 2000) that can not be efficiently captured by most mesozooplankton (Sanders and Wickham 1993; Calbet and Landry 1999). Hence, the conventional wisdom has been that the ‘microbial loop’ dominates the trophic food web in oligotrophic regions and that the energy transfer efficiency to larger planktonic organisms (mesozooplankton) is lower than in productive areas (Ryther 1969; Jackson 1980; Andersen and Hessen 1995). Such an increase in the energy transfer efficiency with eutrophy has been shown in comparative analyses of freshwater lakes using NB-S slopes (Sprules and Munawar 1986; Ahrens and Peters 1991; Tittel et al. 1998; Cottingham 1999). Recent work has challenged this view for oceanic ecosystems suggesting that in oligotrophic areas mesozooplankton grazing impact on primary production may be higher than in productive areas (Calbet 2001; Huskin et al. 2001b). The high turnover rates and low standing stocks of phytoplankton, as well as the low fraction of primary production lost to sinking in oligotrophic regions suggests a very tight and much more efficient coupling between phytoplankton and heterotrophs (Gasol et al. 1997). In other words, consumer (top-down) control predominates. Hence, it is a balance between the energy flow through the microbial and classical food chain, and consumer versus resource (bottom-up) control, which determines the ability of the plankton to recycle carbon within the upper layer or to export it to the ocean interior. In this chapter, the controlling factors affecting the plankton size spectrum will be identified with a view of understanding its utility as a descriptor of the flux of organic C in the upper ocean. Variation in plankton community structure and the balance between limiting nutrients and temperature may influence carbon sequestration and transfer of energy up the trophic food web. The challenge is therefore to ascertain the causative mechanisms governing the trophic structure and status of the major planktonic ecosystems. The main objectives are: To observe the relationship between NB-S slopes, productivity and factors affecting productivity, namely nutrients and temperature To compare latitudinal variations in plankton NB-S slopes with directly determined biogeochemical indicators of carbon flux To discuss factors controlling the slope of the community size spectrum 70 4.2 Large scale spatial variability A number of hydrographic and biogeochemical measurements were obtained from the AMT database at BODC and AMT scientists (Table 4.1). For a detailed description of methods used refer to the AMT cruise reports on the AMT website (AMT 2005). The standard method of removing from the analysis mean dark community respiration rates that were numerically less than twice their standard error, as well as measurements where the incubation temperature changed by more than 5˚C from in situ, was carried out. The thorium data is very preliminary and was observed only for descriptive purposes. MEASUREMENT METHOD Temperature CTD DATA NUMBER OF DISCRETE DEPTH- ORIGINATOR OBSERVATIONS DEPTHS INTEGRATED BODC 406 Y temperature Sea surface (SST) M. Woodward Nitrate Colourimetric and K. autoanalysis Chamberlain Maximum 269 Y concentration from 300-0 m (PML) P. Holligan and Chlorophyll a Fluorometry A. Poulton group 50 - 50-0 m 40 - 50-0 m 26 - 50-0 m 19 - 50-0 m 7 - (NOC) Primary 14 C incubation A. Poulton production method (NOC) Dark Community Winkler titration C. Robinson and Respiration method N. Gist (PML) Winkler titration C. Robinson and method N. Gist (PML) P:R C export Thorium method S. Thomalla (UCT/NOC) Flux of organic C from surface Table 4.1. List of (unpublished) data obtained to compare to discrete nano/microplankton and 50-0 m depth-integrated complete community NB-S slopes. 71 4.2.1 Latitudinal temperature distributions The vertical distribution of temperature in the upper water column over the latitudinal range from 50˚N to 50˚S depicts the hydrographic characteristics of the different oceanographic regimes traversed during the AMT cruises and the seasonal effect on the water column structure (Fig. 4.2). The spatial structure of temperature distribution during May-June 2003 (AMT 12) and April-June 2004 (AMT 14) were similar. In the northern hemisphere, surface temperature increased from ca. 14˚C at 45˚N to ca. 24˚C at 20˚N. The frontal zone north of ca. 35˚N marked the transition from the cooler and less saline temperate waters (NADR) to the northern oligotrophic gyre. The deepening of the 14-20˚C isotherms marks the northern and southern Atlantic gyre regions on all three transects. A reduction in the thickness of the upper mixed layer between 10˚N and 10˚S was observed as a result of the equatorial upwelling. An outcropping, or tilting, of the isotherms was also found between 15˚N and 20˚N on AMT 13, indicating the cooling of subsurface waters as a result of the upwelling area off the coast of NW Africa (Fig. 4.1b). From 35˚S to 45˚S, the transect crosses the South Subtropical Convergence (SSTC) and surface temperature drops from ca. >18˚C to ca. <10˚C. Surface temperature ranged from 4˚ to 28˚C, 10˚ to 28˚C and 6˚ to 28˚C on AMT 12, 13 and 14 respectively. The surface mixed layer isotherms of AMT 13 (boreal autumn and austral spring) are shifted slightly north in comparison with AMT 12 and 14 (boreal spring and austral autumn). Seasonal differences are reduced at the equator and increase at either end of the transect. There is also less of a temporal component in deeper water. This results in a steeper temperature gradient during autumn than in the spring. The cold Falklands Current extends further north, at the southern end of the transect, in the austral spring, while the warmer Brazil Current is prevalent at the same latitudes in the autumn. 72 28 -100 20 Temp. (°C) -200 12 a.) Depth (m) -300 4 -100 -200 b.) -300 -100 -200 -300 c.) -40 -20 0 20 40 Latitude (+ve °N) Figure 4.2. Spatial distribution of temperature on a) AMT 12, b) 13 and c) 14. The interval is 2˚C. 73 4.2.2 Spatial structure of nitrate Only nitrate concentration is presented here as nitrite, phosphate and silicate followed a similar latitudinal pattern. Excluding temperate waters, nitrate was low (<0.1 μmol l-1) in the upper mixed layer throughout the transect (Fig. 4.3). The nutrient pattern in the oligotrophic gyres agrees well with previous AMT observations (Marañón and Holligan 1999; Marañón et al. 2000). The latitudinal variation in the nutricline generally reflected that of the thermocline. For example, on AMT 12 and 13 the vertical extent of the nitrate-depleted waters was slightly larger in the South Atlantic gyre than it was in the North Atlantic gyre similar to the thermal structure. Increased nutrient concentrations in subsurface waters were measured between 15˚N and 20˚N reflecting the proximity of the African coastal upwelling on AMT 13. The increased subsurface nitrate concentrations that persisted between 15˚N and 8˚S indicate the effects of the equatorial upwelling on all three cruises. The highest nitrate concentrations (>35 μmol l-1) were found at depths greater than 150 m in this upwelling region. The highest surface nitrate concentrations (>5 μmol l-1) were found on AMT 12 and 13, south of the SSTC, where the vertical distribution of nutrients was relatively homogenous. The patterns of nitrate concentration in temperate latitudes changed noticeably between cruises. During the boreal spring cruises (AMT 12 and 14), surface nitrate concentrations above 5 μmol l-1 were measured in the North Atlantic from 30˚N to 40˚N northwards, whereas surface waters were depleted (<0.1 μmol l-1) during September/October 2003 (AMT 13). On the other hand, surface nitrate depletion in the South Atlantic Ocean extended further south (35˚S) during AMT 12 and 14 as compared to AMT 13. Although AMT 12 and 14 took place at the same time of year (May/April-June) some differences were found in the nitrate distribution: (i) Nitrate depletion extended further north on AMT 12 and (ii) measurable subsurface concentrations of nitrate (0.1-5 μmol l-1) were detectable at shallower depth (ca. 50 m) throughout most of the southern gyre on AMT 14. Furthermore, AMT 14 seemed to have detectable amounts of surface nitrate (>0.1 μmol l-1) throughout the gyres compared to AMT 12 and 13, which were nutrient depleted (<0.1 μmol l-1). 74 40 30 Nitrate conc. 20 (μmol l-1) -100 a.) Depth (m) -200 10 0 -100 b.) -200 -100 c.) -200 -40 -20 0 20 40 Latitude (+ve °N) Figure 4.3. Spatial distribution of the concentration of nitrate from discrete bottle data during a) AMT 12, b) 13 and c) 14. The contour interval is 1 μmol l-1. 75 4.2.3 Chlorophyll a Low concentrations (<0.2 mg m-3) of chlorophyll a (Chl a) were measured along most of the transect during the three cruises (Fig. 4.4). Lowest Chl a levels characterised the upper mixed layer of the gyres, where concentrations were below 0.1 mg m-3, and occasionally below 0.05 mg m-3. Concentrations above 0.5 mg m-3 were found in surface and subsurface waters in the temperate and upwelling regions. The centre of the equatorial upwelling is slightly to the north of the equator (ca. 5˚N) on all three transects. A distinct deep chlorophyll maximum (DCM) was present at the base of the euphotic layer, as reported on previous AMT cruises (Marañón and Holligan 1999; Marañón et al. 2000; Serret et al. 2001). The DCM is not necessarily a real biomass maximum but more a result of the decrease with depth in the carbon to Chl a ratio (Marañón et al. 2001). It was characterised by chlorophyll concentrations between 0.1 and 0.8 mg m-3 and was deepest in the southern central gyre on AMT 13, reflecting the deepening of the thermocline and nutricline. The relationship between the DCM and the thermocline is a characteristic feature of the tropical Atlantic Ocean (Agustí and Duarte 1999). The distribution of Chl a in temperate latitudes displayed some seasonal changes. During the boreal spring (AMT 12 and 14) Chl a concentrations in the northern latitudes (>37˚N) were slightly higher (0.6 – 0.8 mg m-3) than in the boreal autumn (<0.5 mg m-3). The higher chlorophyll levels are indicative of the late stages of the North Atlantic spring bloom. Similarly, highest Chl a levels (0.5 mg m-3) in the southern high latitudes were found during the austral spring (AMT 13). Although the vertical and horizontal spatial distribution of Chl a was similar between cruises, there were slight differences in chlorophyll levels. AMT 14 appeared to have higher concentrations by approximately 0.1 mg m-3 throughout the entire transect. AMT 12 had the least developed DCM, particularly in the gyres and at low latitudes. The spatial distribution of Chl a on AMT 13 reflects the different cruise track, as well as the seasonal differences in the depth of the DCM in the South Atlantic gyre. The NW African coastal upwelling on AMT 13, for example, displayed a marked increase in Chl a, with concentrations reaching 0.5 mg m-3. 76 Chl a (mg m-3) -100 a.) Depth (m) -200 -100 b.) -200 -100 c.) -200 -40 -20 0 20 40 Latitude (+ve °N) Figure 4.4. Latitudinal distribution of chlorophyll a concentration during a) AMT 12, b) 13 and c) 14. Contour intervals are 0.05 mg m-3. 77 4.3 Factors influencing plankton size spectra 4.3.1 Temperature There was no obvious relationship between the slope of the discrete nano/microplankton community and ambient, or in situ, temperature (Fig. 4.5). Integrating the community with depth enabled variations to be smoothed and general patterns with other abiotic and biotic factors to be observed more effectively (Fig. 4.6). 0 Slope -0.5 -1 -1.5 -2 0 10 20 30 Temperature (°C) Figure 4.5. Relationship between discrete in situ temperature and the discrete nano/microplankton NB-S slope. In view of the fact that picoplankton dominate the biomass in oligotrophic areas and account for the majority of the primary production (Agawin et al. 2000; Marañón et al. 2001), picoplankton counts, provided by Dr Mike Zubkov and Jane Heywood (NOC), were incorporated in the depth-integrated size spectra to enable analysis of the community from 0.45 to 4300 μm. There was a significant linear (model 1) regression (r2 = 0.20, F77 = 18.99, p<0.001) between the NB-S slope of the nano- to mesozooplankton community and sea surface temperature (SST, Fig. 4.6a). When the picoplankton community were incorporated into the spectrum (Fig. 4.6b), however, the relationship with SST was no longer significant (r2 = 0.01, F61 = 0.83 p>0.37). 78 -0.9 -0.9 b.) a.) -1.0 Slope -1.0 -1.1 -1.1 -1.2 -1.3 -1.2 0 10 20 30 0 10 SST (°C) 20 30 SST (°C) Figure 4.6. Effect of sea surface temperature (SST) on 50-0 m depth-integrated NB-S slopes of a) the nano- to mesozooplankton (10-4300 μm) community and b) the pico- to mesozooplankton (0.45-4300 μm) community. Note the change in scale. 4.3.2 Nutrients There was no relationship between the NB-S slope of the discrete nano- to microplankton community size spectrum and in situ nitrate concentration (Fig. 4.7). No significant trend in the slopes of the depth-integrated nano- to mesozooplankton community with nutrient concentration was apparent (Fig. 4.8). However, the pico- to mesozooplankton NB-S slopes did show some relationship, where areas with higher nitrate levels had slightly less negative slopes. 0 Slope -0.5 -1 -1.5 -2 0 10 20 30 Nitrate (μmol l-1) Figure 4.7. Relationship between the concentration of in situ nitrate and the NB-S slope of the discrete nano-/microplankton community size spectrum. 79 Slope -1 -1.2 nano-meso pico-meso -1.4 0 20 40 -1 Nitrate (μmol l ) Figure 4.8. Regression between maximum nitrate concentrations in 300-0 m and NB-S slopes of the nano- to mesozooplankton and pico- to mesozooplankton community. The lines are the least-squares (model 1) regressions fitted to the nano- to mesozooplankton data [y = 0.002x - 1.11, r2 = 0.09, F74 = 6.91, p>0.01] and pico- to mesozooplankton data [y = 0.001x - 1.06, r2 = 0.14, F57 = 9.29, p<0.01]. 4.4 Consumer versus resource control of the pelagic community 4.4.1 Chlorophyll a Chlorophyll a (chl a), a common photosynthetic pigment, was measured by fluorometry. Although chlorophyll concentration is not always proportional to the biomass of the autotrophic community (Marañón et al. 2000) it is generally used as an indicator of standing stock. Here, chl a levels were integrated to 50-0 m for comparison with the depth-integrated of NB-S slopes. There was a weak and non-significant decrease in the slopes of the pico- and nano to mesozooplankton community with increasing chlorophyll levels (Fig. 4.9). 80 Slope -1 -1.2 nano-meso pico-meso -1.4 0 10 20 30 -2 Chl a (mg m ) Figure 4.9. Regression between depth-integrated chlorophyll a concentration and NBS slopes of the nano- to mesozooplankton and pico- to mesozooplankton community size spectra. The lines are the least-squares (model 1) regressions fitted to the nanoto mesozooplankton data [y = 0.002x - 1.08, r2 = 0.01, F56 = 0.67, p>0.41] and pico- to mesozooplankton data [y = 0.001x - 1.05, r2 = 0.02, F49 = 0.94, p>0.34]. 4.4.2 Primary Production 14 C-fixed primary production was normalised by dividing by total chl a concentration. This chlorophyll a-normalised rate of photosynthesis (PP/Btot) characterises the turnover rate of phytoplankton (mg C mg Chl-1 d-1) and indicates the intensity of energy flow per biomass unit (Piontkovski et al. 2003a). There was no significant relationship (r2 = 0.07, F40 = 2.78, p>0.10) between the slope of the community and PP/Btot (Fig. 4.10). -0.9 Slope -1 -1.1 -1.2 0 2 4 6 -1 PP/Btot (mg C mg Chl d-1) Figure 4.10. Relationship between 50-0 m depth-integrated normalised primary production and NB-S slopes of the pico- to mesozooplankton community. The straight line is the least-squares (model 1) regression fitted to these data [y = 0.008x - 1.07, r2 = 0.07, F40 = 2.78, p>0.10]. 81 4.4.3 Community interactions As previously found (Irigoien et al. 2004), pico- to microplankton average cell size increased with pico- to microplankton biomass (Fig. 4.11a). Small nanophytoplankton and picophytoplankton are co-dominant at low phytoplankton biomass, the situation typical of oligotrophic regions of the ocean (Agawin et al. 2000). Large phytoplankton, such as diatoms, typical of blooms dominate at high phytoplankton biomass. On the contrary, for mesozooplankton, the relation between individual size and biomass was weaker (Fig. 4.11b). This indicates that increases in pico- to microplankton biomass are mainly due to large cells, whereas increases in mesozooplankton biomass are not as strongly related to changes in size on the AMT cruises. -9 b.) Log size (mg C ind-1) a.) -1 -10 -2 -11 -12 -3 2 3 1 4 Log biomass (mg C m-2) 2 3 4 -2 Log biomass (mg C m ) Figure 4.11. Relationship between the biomass and mean size of a) pico- to microplankton and b) mesozooplankton. The straight lines are the least-squares (model 1) regressions fitted to the data for a) [log(y) = 0.94log(x) - 13.66, r2 = 0.64, F59 = 140.80, p<0.001] and b) [log(y) = 0.30log(x) - 2.53, r2 = 0.28, F77 = 29.40, p<0.001]. Note the change in scales. As such, abundance and biomass are proxies of each other in the case of mesozooplankton, but not for phytoplankton, where there is no relation between cell abundance and total biomass in the pico- to microplankton size range (Fig 4.12). 82 6000 a.) Mesoplankton biomass . (mg C m-2) Pico- to microplankton biomass . (mg C m-2) 12000 10000 8000 6000 4000 2000 b.) 4000 2000 0 0 0 1 0 2 1 2 Pico- to microplankton abundance Mesoplankton abundance (ind m-2 × 1014) (ind m-2× 105) 3 Figure 4.12. Relationship between abundance and biomass of phytoplankton and mesozooplankton. a) Pico- to microplankton abundance versus biomass and b) mesoplankton abundance versus biomass on a vertically integrated basis. Values were calculated by integration of values from 0 to 50 m. Note the change in scales. When observing the NB-S slopes another interesting consequence of the relationship between cell size and biomass in the pico- to microplankton size range arose: The NBS slopes in the pico- to microplankton size range were positively related to biomass and negatively to abundance (Fig 4.13). Pico- to microplankton slope -0.8 b.) a.) -0.9 -1.0 -1.1 -1.2 0 2 4 6 8 10 1 2 Pico- to microplankton abundance (ind m -2 × 1014 ) Pico- to microplankton biomass -2 0 3 (mg C m × 10 ) Figure 4.13. Relationship between cell size, represented by the NB-S slope, versus biomass and abundance of phytoplankton. a) Pico- to microplankton NB-S slopes versus biomass. The straight line is the least-squares (model 1) regression fitted to these data [y = 2 × 10-5x - 1.05, r2 = 0.28, F58 = 22.56, p<0.001]. b) Pico- to microplankton NB-S slopes versus abundance. The straight line is the least-squares (model 1) regression fitted to these data [y = -5 × 10-16x – 0.93, r2 = 0.13, F58 = 8.49, p<0.01]. 83 Complete community NB-S slopes were significantly related to the mesozooplankton: pico- to microplankton biomass ratio confirming that the community slope is an indicator of the transfer efficiency of biomass between producers and consumers (Fig. 4.14). Community Slope -0.9 -1 -1.1 -1.2 0 0.4 0.8 1.2 1.6 2 Mesoplankton biomass / pico- to microplankton biomass Figure 4.14. Regression between NB-S slopes of the pico- to mesozooplankton community versus the mesozooplankton: pico- to microplankton biomass ratio. The line is the least-squares (model 1) regression fitted to these data [y = 0.08x - 1.00, r2 = 0.68, F58 = 121.20, p<0.001]. Community slopes exhibited a weak and non-significant negative relation with pico- to microplankton biomass (Fig. 4.15a). A significant positive relation was observed between community slopes and mesozooplankton biomass (Fig. 4.15b) but no relation with total biomass (Fig 4.15c). These results suggest that the transfer efficiency between trophic levels is not higher in more productive areas and that variations in mesozooplankton biomass are an important factor determining the community slope. 84 -0.9 b.) Community slope a.) -1.0 -1.1 -1.2 0 0 2000 4000 6000 8000 10000 Pico- to microplankton biomass (mg C m-2) 2000 4000 6000 Mesoplankton biomass (mg C m -2 ) -0.9 Community slope c.) -1.0 -1.1 -1.2 0 4000 8000 12000 Total plankton biomass (mg C m-2) Figure 4.15. Regression between the NB-S slopes of the pico- to mesozooplankton community versus a) pico- to microplankton, b) mesozooplankton and c) total plankton biomass. The lines are the least-squares (model 1) regressions and the curve is the logarithmic regression fitted to these data. Analyses are given in Table 4.2. Simple Regression r2 ANOVA Pico- to microplankton Mesozooplankton Total community y = - 1.20 × 10-6 x - 1.03 y = 0.07log(x) - 1.10 y = 3.60 × 10-6 x - 1.05 0.02 0.52 0.05 F59 = 0.14 F59 = 58.52 F59 = 3.05 p>0.71 p<0.001 p>0.09 Table 4.2. Regression analysis of the least-squares (model 1) and logarithmic regressions between the community slope (y) and biomass (x) in Figure 4.15. 85 To confirm these findings, the coefficient of variation (CV) of the normalised biomass in each size class was plotted against the corresponding log2-size class (Fig. 4.16). This statistic is used to compare the amount of variation in populations and is scaleindependent, i.e. not affected by the difference in size. A significant positive relationship between the size class and CV of normalised biomass was observed on the AMT. This shows that larger size classes had more variable biomass than smaller sizes. In other words, the small phytoplankton size fractions, i.e. the top left corner of the spectrum, remained relatively stable and changes in the larger size classes were the main cause of variations in community slope. Coefficient of variation (CV) 0.3 0.2 0.1 0 -50 -30 -10 10 -1 log2 [size] (mg C ind ) Figure 4.16. Variability in pico- to mesozooplankton abundance in the Atlantic. Regression of the coefficient of variation (CV) of the normalised biomass in each size class plotted against the corresponding log2-size class from pico- to mesozooplankton NB-S spectra. The straight line is the least-squares (model 1) regression fitted to these data [y = 0.01x + 0.18, r2 = 0.75, F24 = 67.36, p<0.001]. 86 4.5 Other carbon flux descriptors 4.5.1 Metabolic balance There was no significant relationship between the slope of the community spectrum and trophic status (Fig. 4.17a) or between NB-S slopes and respiration of the microbial community (Fig. 4.17b). -0.9 a.) b.) Slope -1 -1.1 -1.2 0.4 0.8 1.2 0 4.17. Relationship 40 60 80 100 DCR (mmol O2 m-2 d-1) P:R Figure 20 between 50-0 m depth-integrated (areal) a) production:respiration (P:R) and b) dark community respiration (DCR) versus pico- to mesozooplankton community NB-S slopes. The dashed line indicates a P:R of 1, where the community in the upper ocean is metabolically balanced. The straight lines are the least-squares (model 1) regressions fitted to data in a) [y = -0.01x - 1.02, r2 = 0.03, F18 = 5.20 × 10-2, p>0.82] and b) [y = - 3.92 × 10-4x - 1.02, r2 = 0.04, F25 = 1.06, p>0.31]. 4.5.2 Thorium estimates of C export The disequilibrium between thorium (234Th) and uranium (238U) using Rutgers van der Loeff and Moore’s (1999) method was used to quantify particulate matter export over 7 stations on AMT 12. 234 Th (t1/2 = 24.1 d) is a product of the radioactive decay of (t1/2 = 4.47 × 109 yr). The lower half-life of soluble parent 238 238 U 234 Th enables the disequilibrium between its U to be measured and the net rate of particle export from the upper ocean on time scales of days to weeks to be estimated (Benitez-Nelson et al. 2001). The organic carbon flux from the surface is then calculated by multiplying thorium flux from the surface with the ratio between thorium activity and inorganic carbon on large particles (>50 μm) settling out of the water column. Stand Alone Pumps (SAPS) were deployed to 100 m at each of the stations to measure this ratio. 87 The C export measurements shown here are only preliminary results and have been included for descriptive purposes. When the outlier at the bottom right of the plot was removed there was no relationship between the flux of C and the slope of the nano- to mesozooplankton size spectrum (Fig. 4.18). This relationship was not significant mainly as a result of the few data points for thorium based export that were available. nano-meso Slope -0.9 pico-meso -1.1 -1.3 0.1 1 10 100 Organic C flux (mmol C m-2 d-1) Figure 4.18. Relationship between the organic carbon flux from the surface of the ocean to the deep ocean versus the NB-S slopes of the pico- to mesozooplankton and nano- to mesozooplankton community. Circled data point was removed from statistical analysis. The least-squares (model 1) regression of these data is [y = 0.02x – 1.16, r2 = 0.49, F5 = 3.85, p>0.12]. 88 4.6 Discussion 4.6.1 Environment Temperature In chapter 3, it was suggested that the dome-shaped relationship of the nano- to microplankton slope with latitude was similar to global biodiversity patterns and may, therefore, be a result of seasonal and spatial differences caused by the latitudinal variation in solar radiation (Kaustuv et al. 1998). Sea surface temperature (SST) can be considered to be a function of this solar radiation and, hence is directly or indirectly responsible for this relationship (Fig. 4.6a). However, when the picoplankton were included in the size spectrum there was less of a direct relationship with temperature (Fig. 4.6b). Picophytoplankton account for a significant, and usually dominant, fraction of the total primary production, (Marañón et al. 2001), and, hence, their inclusion altered the observed pattern. The lack of a relationship suggests that temperature was not a significant factor controlling the degree of the pico- to mesozooplankton slope, and, hence, flux of organic matter within the pelagic food web. Nutrients Similar to temperature, there was no apparent relationship between the slope of the nano-/microplankton community and discrete ambient nitrate concentration. The spectrum of planktonic organisms at any one point in space (or time) is very limited in its ability to represent that area. The different components of the pelagic food web have varying life cycles spanning various orders of magnitude from minutes (picoplankton) to days (phytoplankton) to weeks (mesozooplankton). Hence, superimposed on this vertically dynamic component of the upper ocean is one of temporal variability. Furthermore, absolute nutrient concentration tells us very little about the history of an area. A high nitrate concentration will not necessarily indicate a higher phytoplankton biomass, if a bloom had previously taken place and the population was in decline. Depth-integrated NB-S slopes of the community (Fig. 4.8), on the other hand, showed that areas where the maximum nitrate concentration was high have communities which are able to transfer energy more efficiently to higher trophic levels, in other words more mesozooplankton per unit of phytoplankton, and, thus, a higher potential to export organic carbon. However, the relationship was weak, which suggests that the nutrient environment has only a very limited effect on the trophic food web efficiency and the ultimate flux of carbon. This contrasts with results in freshwater lakes which found a significant positive relationship between phosphorus concentration and the slopes of plankton size spectra (Ahrens and Peters 1991; Cottingham 1999). Furthermore, it has 89 been argued that the location of the maximum chlorophyll concentration is a better indicator of maximum nutricline depth, to characterise, for example, the biological centres of gyres, than the location of the maximum dynamic height (McClain et al. 2004). However, the relationship between the NB-S slopes and chlorophyll concentration were also weak and non-significant (Fig. 4.9). 4.6.2 Turnover of material There was no significant relation between primary productivity (phytoplankton P/B ratio) or biomass (pico- to microplankton or total plankton biomass) and the slope of the community (Fig. 4.10, 4.15a, c). This differs from Gaedke’s (1992a) analysis of plankton size spectra in a large oligotrophic lake, where higher P/B ratios were related to steeper slopes and a decrease in the biomass flux up the spectrum. These results suggest that although oligotrophic regions are characterised by high turnover rates of phytoplankton (Marañón et al. 2001), low phytoplankton numbers and biomass (Marañón et al. 2000), and a low export ratio, (Legendre and Le Fèvre 1991) they do not necessarily mean a lower transfer of photosynthetically fixed organic C to higher trophic levels. On the contrary, our results suggest a tight coupling between phytoplankton and mesozooplankton (Fig. 4.15, 4.16), supporting recent evidence of consumer control in oligotrophic regions (Gasol et al. 1997). 4.6.3 Trophic status The production to respiration ratio (P:R) is an indicator of the metabolic balance and trophic status of the upper oceans. Ecosystems where photosynthesis exceeds total planktonic respiration (P>R) are net autotrophic; they are net sinks for CO 2 and net producers of O2 and organic matter. Conversely, ecosystems where respiration exceeds photosynthesis (P<R) are net heterotrophic; they are net sources of CO2 and net consumers of organic carbon and oxygen. A P:R value of 1, therefore, reflects an upper ocean system with a community in balance. There was no general trend between slopes of size spectra and P:R, which reflects how community spectra integrate many functional properties of the system. P:R estimates of trophic status assume that the degree of heterotrophy of pelagic ecosystems may be predicted from gross primary production, overlooking the effects of food web structure on community metabolism (Serret et al. 2001). The slope of the community, however, does not just reflect the potential C export by respiratory losses through each step in the food chain in the spectrum. It is also able to reflect the flux of biomass to larger pelagic organisms (Fig. 4.14), as well as the potential export of carbon to the deep ocean. It may therefore also be for these reasons, that no significant relationship was found between slopes of community spectra and the respiration of the microbial community (Fig. 4.17b). 90 Respiration, a measure of metabolic rate, only indicates potential carbon loss from the upper ocean system to the atmosphere, which is only a small part of what the plankton size spectrum reflects. 4.6.4 Carbon export Although there was no relationship between thorium estimates of C export and the slope of the community biomass-size spectrum, higher trophic transfer efficiencies (shallower slopes of plankton spectra) are expected to indicate an increase in export of C from the upper to the deeper ocean (Fig. 4.18). The proportion of primary production lost to sinking (export ratio) increases with productivity in the open ocean (Baines et al. 1994b). These sinking losses of larger phytoplankton in productive areas (Irigoien et al. 2004) could be an important factor shaping the community slope. However, the lack of a relationship between the community slope and phytoplankton biomass (Fig. 4.15a) suggests that changes in phytoplankton community size structure do not affect the transfer of biomass to higher trophic levels. Although community slopes do not represent the sinking losses of phytoplankton, shallower slopes still indicate a more efficient transfer of energy to higher trophic levels and higher potential for C export out of the upper mixed layer. This is primarily because mesozooplankton contribute significantly to the downward export via faecal pellets (Roy et al. 2000), particularly in more productive systems (Le Borgne and Rodier 1997), as well as by sedimentation because of their higher settling velocities compared to phytoplankton cells (Kiørboe 1997). Picoplankton play an important role in the export of carbon from the euphotic zone through a pathway involving the production of detritus, which is consequently grazed by mesozooplankton (Richardson et al. 2004). Despite the conventional views of balanced microbial production and microheterotrophic consumption, this may also be an important pathway of C export in the Atlantic. Fortunately, detrital material in the nanoto microplankton size fractions was included in the analysis and although its nature or origin was unknown it is likely that this pathway was represented by the NB-S model. 4.6.5 Trophic transfer efficiency These results have challenged the traditional belief that the energy transfer efficiency between planktonic trophic levels in oligotrophic oceanic ecosystems is lower than in productive regions (Ryther 1969; Jackson 1980; Andersen and Hessen 1995) and confirm recent results suggesting a higher grazing impact of mesozooplankton on phytoplankton in oligotrophic zones (Calbet 2001; Huskin et al. 2001b). A relationship between system productivity and transfer efficiency was observed in plankton size 91 spectra studies in freshwater lakes (Sprules and Munawar 1986; Ahrens and Peters 1991; Cyr et al. 1997; Tittel et al. 1998; Cottingham 1999). Hence, data presented here suggest basic differences between marine and freshwater lake plankton. Two reasons could explain such differences: 1) Differences in the phytoplankton size structure between freshwater and marine systems and 2) Differences in spatial and temporal variability in marine and freshwater production systems. Contrary to freshwater ecosystems, where small cells often dominate blooms, phytoplankton blooms in marine systems are due to large cells (Irigoien et al. 2004; Irigoien et al. 2005b). Larger sizes of phytoplankton in productive areas may contribute to a flatter pico- to microplankton slope (Fig. 3.17, Chapter 3) through sinking losses of larger cells (Rodríguez et al. 2001; Li 2002). Phytoplankton sinking can be considered a substantial component of the global sink of carbon (Turner 2002). Field studies (Billet et al. 1983; Scharek et al. 1999) have questioned the traditionally accepted low sinking rates (ca. 10 m d-1) measured in the laboratory (Smayda 1970) and shown that large ungrazed phytoplankton, particularly from blooms, can sink out of the upper ocean at very high rates (>100 m d-1). Mesozooplankton are unable to exploit this resource pulse due to the slow response times of copepod life cycles (Mauchline 1998), contributing therefore to a steeper community slope and a lower transfer efficiency in productive marine areas. Furthermore, the differences in phytoplankton size structure between freshwater lakes and the oceans contribute to the different relationship between sinking flux and planktonic primary production, whereby the export ratio increases with productivity in the ocean (Wassmann 1990; Legendre and Le Fèvre 1991) and decreases in lakes (Baines et al. 1994b). Production in oceanic systems is affected by high spatial and temporal variability, such as the formation of the thermocline (Le Borgne 1981) and upwelling events, as well as to a high advective dispersal and accumulation at fronts (Franks 1992). This physical variability is likely to be higher than in lakes, resulting in a lower coupling between planktonic producers and consumers in the ocean. Oligotrophic areas of the ocean, however, show a high stability (Quiñones et al. 2003; Makarieva et al. 2004), which could result in a stronger coupling between phytoplankton and mesozooplankton, via grazing (Calbet 2001; Huskin et al. 2001b) and mesozooplankton-mediated processes, such as nutrient regeneration by excretion (Isla et al. 2004) and liberation of the dissolved organic matter by sloppy feeding (Roy et al. 1989; Møller 2005), both of which affect the rate of phytoplankton and bacterial production (Banse 1995). Furthermore, copepods are food-limited in these environments because higher temperatures result in greater food requirements to balance respiratory demands (Hirst 92 and Bunker 2003; Bunker and Hirst 2004). In this way, the tight coupling may compensate for the potential efficiency losses due to the small size of the producers in the oligotrophic open ocean. The good agreement between the community slope with mesozooplankton biomass suggests that there is a more efficient transfer of material when there is more mesozooplankton (Fig. 14.5b) and that the community is consumer controlled. However, this logarithmic relationship was similar to that of a limiting substrate, such as light or nutrients for algal growth, suggesting that above a certain mesozooplankton biomass, no further increase in mesozooplankton biomass would affect the transfer of energy. Furthermore, whilst changes in mesozooplankton abundance and biomass were important causal effects, smaller phytoplankton remained relatively stable in the Atlantic (Fig. 14.6). The relatively uniform abundance of small algae associated with a high variability in the abundance of mesozooplankton is a common observation in plankton size spectra studies (Sprules and Munawar 1986; Gilabert 2001). Here, however, is the first time that its ecological significance has been recognised and discussed. It must be noted that grazing impact and sinking losses of plankton are only a couple of factors that contribute to the shape of the abundance-size distribution. Another important factor contributing to slopes of size spectra may be variation in mortality of mesozooplankton. Data on zooplankton mortality are so scarce that it is almost impossible to speculate whether there is a link with the productivity of the system. Nevertheless, results from Hirst and Kiørboe (2002) suggest a relation between mortality, size and temperature, which could be an explanation considering the observed differences in size between oligotrophic and productive areas, as well as the usually higher temperatures of the oligotrophic areas. 93 4.6.6 Some limitations to the size spectra approach The slope of a plankton size spectrum is not an instantaneous measure of trophic transfer efficiency but an integration of variations in recent times. We have to consider that larger-sized organisms may have a time lag to respond to changes in the system and therefore a slope to slope comparison is not very useful to determine the efficiency of the system. However, biomass integrates previous production, and hence, the slope is what remains after adding (growth) and subtracting (mortality) rates in the different size ranges. Slopes of size spectra may not be sensitive enough to measure the differences in transfer efficiency between different systems, particularly in seasonal systems which are not in steady state and extensive spatial datasets such as those covered by the AMT dataset. The noise caused by different factors affecting the slope, such as light and temperature, and resulting in variable growth rates, may be higher than the variations caused by different transfer efficiencies. As such, the comparison of two slopes is not a reliable indication of one measure being more efficient than the other. Nevertheless, the average slope was rather stable across spatial and temporal systems in this thesis so there cannot be much variability due to these different factors. Furthermore, if slopes of size spectra are not sensitive enough to detect differences in transfer efficiency between systems it suggests that such differences are not very large. This would suggest that such differences were smaller than in freshwater systems where the same approach was able to detect differences (Sprules and Munawar 1986; Ahrens and Peters 1991; Cyr et al. 1997; Tittel et al. 1998; Cottingham 1999). Strong evidence of a relationship between the scaling relationship between abundance and body mass, i.e. the slopes of plankton size spectra, and trophic transfer efficiency has already been presented in other studies (Jennings and Mackinson 2003). Jennings and Mackinson (2003) also predicted that the slope should be steeper in stable environments. Although stability has not been defined for the AMT dataset, it is generally true to say that oligotrophic gyres are more stable than higher latitudes. Nevertheless, slopes were not found to be significantly steeper in oligotrophic systems than in upwelling systems or higher latitudes. Hence, the interesting question raised by this study is that contrary to what is expected, eutrophic systems do not seem to be more efficient than oligotrophic ones in the transfer of organic matter. 94 4.7 Conclusions Community size spectra integrate a lot of functional properties of the system. Hence, the slope does not just reflect the potential export of C to the atmosphere or to the deep ocean, as does P:R and respiration, and thorium export estimates respectively. Here, it has been demonstrated to be primarily a measure of the flux of biomass to larger pelagic organisms. Furthermore, the transfer of energy between phytoplankton and mesozooplankton was found not to be strongly linked to the system productivity as previously found in freshwater systems. This suggests that carbon flux models should reconsider the carbon transfer efficiency differences between productive and oligotrophic areas of the world’s ocean. This is fundamental in evaluating the future potential impact of climatic change on the nature of interactions between plankton (Edwards and Richardson 2004) and the resource flow to upper trophic levels (Winder and Schindler 2004). 95 CHAPTER 5: TEMPORAL VARIABILITY OF PLANKTON SIZE SPECTRA 5.1 Introduction 5.1.1 The continental shelf A systematic shift from consumer control of primary production and phytoplankton biomass in the open ocean to resource control in coastal areas has been described in an extensive literature review by Gasol et al. (1997). Temperate coastal seas have some clear boundaries and gradients where patterns in the community structure can be more easily interpreted. The onset of thermal stratification in the early part of the development season, results in the spring phytoplankton bloom (Pingree et al. 1978). Phytoplankton growth causes a depletion of inorganic nutrients above the thermocline, resulting in a population decline, characteristic of summer thermal stratification, and eventual species succession. The spring bloom is typically dominated by diatoms which grow rapidly in high levels of inorganic nutrients and the increasingly favourable light regime. By summer the thermocline becomes well established and the increased stability of the water column, as well as increased light and supply of inorganic nutrients from below the thermocline (Holligan et al. 1984b), result in phytoplankton assemblages which are generally dominated by dinoflagellates (Holligan et al. 1984a). When inorganic nutrient levels in surface waters become very low during late summer stratification, small flagellates dominate. Frontal boundaries also produce a resource gradient (Franks 1992) but in a horizontal dimension. Hence, the limits and characteristics of coastal communities are constrained by tidally mixed, frontal and stratified waters (Holligan et al. 1984a). Owing to their size and/or nutritional quality, the three typical assemblages (diatoms, dinoflagellates and flagellates) have different implications for community dynamics, such as secondary production (Berggreen et al. 1988; Miralto et al. 1999; Irigoien et al. 2000; Irigoien et al. 2002; Ianora et al. 2004), and, hence, the ultimate fate of organic carbon. Surface layers of stratified waters are generally dominated by small heterotrophs (bacteria and flagellates), which suggests that the trophic transfer efficiency and flux of organic carbon between primary and secondary producers should be less efficient. In contrast, a well-mixed water column where phytoplankton biomass tends to be more significant (Holligan et al. 1984a), should have a more efficient transfer of biomass to higher trophic levels (mesozooplankton). Phytoplankton blooms may, however, be ‘loopholes’ disrupting predator-prey controls (Irigoien et al. 2005a). The formation of blooms have the potential to reduce the success of microzooplankton grazing as a result of predation avoidance techniques by phytoplankton, such as their 96 larger size or the formation of colonies and spines. These loopholes would reduce the flow of energy up the food web with consequent effects to the marine food chain and top consumers. Slopes of community size spectra are an indicator of trophic transfer efficiency and should, hence, portray these patterns of community biomass-size structure brought about by changes in species succession. Although there have been seasonal studies of plankton size spectra in freshwater lakes (Gasol et al. 1991; Gaedke 1992b) and a lagoon (Gilabert 2001), no comprehensive survey has ever been made in coastal waters. In this chapter, plankton data from a decadal time series conducted at the L4 station off Plymouth will be used to evaluate seasonality in the slopes of plankton size spectra. The L4 sampling station is situated in between stratified and transitional mixed-stratified waters, and sometimes represents the margin of the tidal front characteristic of this area (Pingree et al. 1978). Long term patterns and interannual variability in plankton size spectra will also be observed. Ecological implications of organic carbon distribution patterns and the potential for energy transfer from one trophic level to another will be discussed. As in Chapter 4, a similar analysis of size spectra in terms of productivity will be conducted in order to assess whether coastal seas are resource or consumer controlled. To summarise, the main objectives in this chapter are: To assess the temporal, both seasonal and annual, variability of plankton size spectra at a coastal station To observe how the characteristics of the size spectrum vary across and within trophic levels of the community 97 5.2 Community structure 5.2.1 Microbial community Phytoplankton succession at L4 follows the typical pattern of temperate waters (Fig. 5.1). The spring diatom bloom is evident at this site occurring between April and June, and constituting 23% of the total biomass. It is closely followed by the development of a prominent summer autotrophic, mainly Karenia mikimotoi (previously Gyrodinium aureolum), and heterotrophic dinoflagellate bloom. Picoplankton and flagellates, which are a mixture of autotrophic and heterotrophic organisms, show a distinct seasonal pattern, contributing the majority of the biomass (ca. 90%) during late autumn and winter. Coccolithophores and ciliates, on the other hand, show little seasonality, accounting for 1.1 and 7.6 % of the total microbial biomass respectively. 100% picoplankton 80% auto. dinoflagellates Biomass (%) diatoms 60% 40% hetero. dinoflagellates flagellates 20% ciliates 0% J F M A M J J A S O N D Fig. 5.1. Average seasonal cycle (monthly) of the microbial community biomass structure for phytoplankton (1992-2003) and picoplankton (1998/99 and 2001) at the L4 coastal station. Note that ‘auto’ and ‘hetero’ are abbreviations for autotrophic and heterotrophic. Coccolithophores are the narrow yellow band. 98 The annual cycle of microbial biomass shows peaks and troughs in parts of the community (Fig. 5.2). Dinoflagellates show the most variable biomass from year to year. In years 1993 and 1994 yearly-averaged biomass was very high (26 mg C m-3) and the highest was in 1997 (46 mg C m-3). These peaks in dinoflagellate biomass are followed by low biomass years (1995, 1996 and 1998-2000). Flagellates also show a cyclical pattern but to less of an extent. Peaks in 1994, 1997-1999 and 2002 are followed by troughs the following years. Apart from a slight peak in diatom biomass in 1999 (16 mg C m-3) and higher than average heterotrophic dinoflagellate biomass between 1993 and 1995 (12 mg C m-3), the rest of the community was quite consistent and did not show a clear yearly trend. 1992 was an unusual year, with lower than average biomass in all the community, excluding flagellates. This is because sampling in this year started in October so only accounts for three winter months where mean biomass of most of the community, apart from picoplankton and flagellates, is lower (Fig. 5.1). There was also no sampling between October 1994 and May 1995 so these years cannot be regarded as true annual composites. They are included, nonetheless to observe the overall trend. 50 DIATOMS DINOS. COCCOLITHS. FLAGELLATES -3 Biomass (mg C m ) 40 HET. DINOS. 30 CILIATES 20 10 0 1992 1994 1996 1998 2000 2002 Fig. 5.2. Yearly average of the microbial community biomass structure between 1992 and 2003 at the L4 station. Picoplankton are not included as data are only available between 1998 and 2000. 99 5.2.2 Mesozooplankton community The mesozooplankton community at L4 mainly comprises of copepods (71%), followed by the pelagic larval stages of Cirripedia crustaceans (9%) and cladocerans (8%) (Fig. 5.3). The rest only forms 12% of the community and includes pelagic larval stages of organisms living mainly on the benthos, i.e. the meroplankton, as well as predatory zooplankton, such as chaetognaths. Polychaeta Chaetognatha Bryozoa 1% 0% 0% Cnidaria Mollusca 2% 4% Echinodermata 2% Urochordata 2% Chordata 0% Cirripedia 9% Copepoda 71% Cladocera 8% Malacostraca 1% Figure 5.3. Mean mesozooplankton community abundance structure at the L4 station. Mesozooplankton follow the same seasonal and interannual pattern as copepod abundance (Fig. 5.4). The density of copepods is higher than 1000 ind m-3 throughout the seasonal cycle (Fig. 5.4a). They appear to follow phytoplankton blooms reaching a peak (2900 ind m-3) after the onset of the spring diatom bloom and maximum densities (>3000 ind m-3) after the summer dinoflagellate bloom. The yearly-averaged cycle of mesozooplankton abundance (Fig. 5.4b) shows peaks in abundance in 1988 (5544 ind m-3) and 2000 (4133 ind m-3). Abundance for the other years varies only slightly and was on average 2774 ind m-3. 100 -3 Abundance (ind m ) . 6000 a.) Mesozooplankton b.) 5000 Copepoda 4000 3000 2000 1000 02 00 20 96 98 20 19 94 19 90 92 19 19 19 19 J F M A M J J A S O N D 88 0 Figure 5.4. Average a) seasonal (monthly-average) and b) annual (yearly-average) cycle of mesozooplankton at L4 between 1988 and 2003. 5.3 Plankton size spectra There are different depth-integrated (50-0 m) monthly-averaged composites of community (across trophic levels) and within trophic level size spectra (Table 5.1). Abundance-size data for each of the composites were available from different dates. For example, picoplankton counts were only available in 1998/99 and 2001. Mesozooplankton samples from 1997 to 2000 were analysed for abundance-size structure using the PVA. NB-S SPECTRA COMMUNITY RANGE DATES NUMBER OF SLOPES a) Community i) Pico- to mesozooplankton July 1998 – Mar 1999 9 (across trophic ii) Phyto- to mesozooplankton Jan 1997 – Nov 2000 46 levels) iii) Phyto- to microzooplankton Oct 1992 – Dec 2003 124 iv) Micro- to mesozooplankton Jan 1997 – Nov 2000 46 i) Pico- to phytoplankton July 1998 – Mar 1999/ 21 b) Within a trophic level Jan-Dec 2001 ii) Phytoplankton Oct 1992 – Dec 2003 124 iii) Mesozooplankton Jan 1997 – Nov 2000 46 Table 5.1. Details of monthly-averaged data available for community and within trophic level spectra analysis at L4. 101 5.3.1 Average size spectrum The mean NB-S slope for the complete planktonic community from pico- to mesozooplankton of the entire water column (50-0 m) at L4 between July 1998 and March 1999 was -1.09. The standard error of this slope of the regression line was ±0.02, fitted by least-squares (model 1) to the 30 size classes of the mean spectrum. The coefficient of determination, r2, was 0.98 on seasonal average and varied between 0.92 and 0.99 throughout the months of the seasonal cycle. Spectra show general characteristics of the community (Fig. 5.5). There was a decline in the log 2-2 (4 – 8 pg C ind-1) size class in October, January and February corresponding to small diatoms (Skeletonema costatum and Chaetoceros sp.). There was also a drop in the log2-23 mesozooplankton size class (8.39 × 10-3 – 1.68 × 10-2 mg C ind-1) in January. Most of the seasonal variability in the community can be attributed to changes in the normalised biomass (~ abundance) of the larger nano- to microplankton size fractions, as well as mesozooplankton. Picoplankton and smaller phytoplankton, on the other hand, appear to remain relatively stable throughout the seasonal cycle. Overall, the spectrum is relatively uniform and log2 normalised biomass decreases as a function of size. Jul -2 log2 normalised biomass (mg C m / 20 Aug Sep 10 -1 ∆pg C ind ) Oct Nov Dec 0 Jan Feb Mar -10 -20 -30 -10 0 10 20 30 40 log2 size (pg C ind-1) Figure 5.5. All the monthly-averaged spectra for the entire community (pico- to mesozooplankton) at L4 between July 1998 and March 1999. 102 The slopes of phyto- to mesozooplankton and pico- to mesozooplankton spectra (Fig. 5.6a) are highly significantly correlated. Thus, the phyto- to mesozooplankton slope can be a good representative of the complete community when picoplankton data are not available. There is a less strong regression between the pico- to mesozooplankton and micro- to mesozooplankton slopes of the community (Fig. 5.6b). pico-mesozoo -1.04 a.) -1.09 -1.14 -1.19 -1.15 -1.05 -0.95 phyto-mesozo pico-mesozoo -1.0 b.) -1.1 -1.2 -1.1 -1.0 -0.9 micro-mesozo Figure 5.6. Regression of the slopes of a) phyto- to mesozooplankton and b) micro- to mesozooplankton versus pico-to mesozooplankton community. The solid straight lines are the least-squares (model 1) fitted to data in a) [y = 0.63x -0.44, r2 = 0.95, F8 = 132.02, p<0.001] and b) [y = 0.63x -0.44, r2 = 0.70, F8 = 15.93, p<0.001]. The dashed red lines are the 95% confidence intervals of the regression line. Note the change in scales. 103 5.3.2 Seasonality Across trophic levels Three different types of size spectra were selected to show the seasonal variability of the community (Fig. 5.7). The first was dominated by picoplankton and nanoflagellates with a relatively low abundance of phytoplankton and mesozooplankton characteristic of winter. The second was dominated by phytoplankton, during bloom periods, with a relatively low abundance of mesozooplankton, and the third showed a higher abundance of large heterotrophs and lower phytoplankton densities. These spectra were selected as they characterised the different phases in the seasonal trend of the size distribution of the plankton community. The winter (January) picoplanktondominated and the summer (August) autotroph-dominated spectrum had steeper slopes (-1.12 and -1.17 respectively) than the heterotroph-dominated spectrum during October (-1.05). 20 bloom 10 post-bloom 0 -2 -1 (mg C m / ∆pg C ind ) log2 normalised biomass . Winter -10 -20 -30 -10 0 10 20 30 log2 size (pg C ind-1) Figure 5.7. Three seasonal groupings of complete community size spectra (pico- to mesozooplankton) in winter (January 1999), bloom (August 1998) and post-bloom (October 1998) periods. The seasonal trend in slopes of community size spectra tend towards a more negative value during winter as well as during the height of the spring and summer bloom and shallower slopes between (Fig. 5.8). After the onset of the spring diatom bloom which 104 provides a resource pulse for grazers, the slopes become relatively shallow in May/June and steeper in subsequent months, until they reach a minimum in August. These shallower slopes are followed by steeper negative slopes during system recovery, indicating a decrease in the efficiency of biomass transfer to larger sized organisms. Late summer stratification and further depletion of nutrients from the surface cause a decline in the phytoplankton through grazing processes by increased numbers of mesozooplankton. The lag in the mesozooplankton population after the phytoplankton blooms may account for the shift to shallower slopes. Picoplankton and flagellate numbers remain high throughout the winter, whilst other parts of the community are low in abundance or absent, resulting in the steeper slopes observed in the winter months between December and February. Although slopes of NB-S spectra were calculated for different parts of the community, the seasonal trend was similar. As the size range of the community increased, however, the slopes decreased relative to each other. For example, when the picoplankton were included, more negative scaling exponents were obtained. pico-mesozoo phyto-mesozoo -0.8 phyto-microzoo micro-mesozoo Slope -0.9 -1 -1.1 -1.2 J F M A M J J A S O N D Figure 5.8. Seasonal variation in slopes of “across trophic level” spectra at the L4 station. The standard deviations of the mean seasonal variability in the NB-S slopes are shown. 105 The slopes of community spectra do not appear to relate to phytoplankton biomass or total community biomass (Fig. 5.9, Table 5.2). However, there was a significant relationship (p<0.001) between the slopes of the community (phyto-mesozooplankton and micro-mesozooplankton) and mesozooplankton biomass, where r2 was 0.29 and 0.54 respectively (Fig. 5.9b, Table 5.2). There was not a similar significant relationship (p>0.76) with the pico-mesozooplankton composite slopes and mesozooplankton biomass. This was most probably because of the few data points available (n = 9). Also, the phyto-microzooplankton slopes did not show a significant relationship with mesozooplankton biomass. 0 b.) Community slope. a.) -0.4 -0.8 -1.2 -1.6 0 4000 8000 12000 16000 1 Phytoplankton biomass 10 100 1000 10000 Mesozooplankton biomass 0 Community slope c.) pico-mesozoo phyto-mesozoo -0.4 phyto-microzoo micro-mesozoo -0.8 -1.2 -1.6 0 5000 10000 15000 20000 Community biomass Figure 5.9. Relationships between NB-S slopes and biomass (mg C m-2) of depthintegrated a) phytoplankton, b) mesozooplankton and c) complete community for different community composites (see Table 5.1 for reference). Table 5.2 provides the results of the regression analyses. 106 COMMUNITY ANALYSIS PHYTOPLANKTON MESOZOOPLANKTON COMMUNITY BIOMASS BIOMASS (BP) BIOMASS (BZ) (BC) RANGE Pico-mesozoo Phyto-mesozoo Phyto-microzoo Micro-mesozoo -5 Regression b = -2.00×10 BP - 1.10 b = 0.02log( BZ) - 1.15 b = 1.01×10-5 BC - 1.09 r2 0.13 0.02 0.12 ANOVA F8 = 1.06, p>0.34 F8 = 0.11, p>0.76 F8 = 0.91, p>0.37 Regression b = -7.00×10-6 BP - 1.05 b = 0.09log( BZ) - 1.27 b = -3.00×10-6 BC - 1.06 r2 0.05 0.29 0.01 ANOVA F45 = 2.30, p>0.14 F45 = 18.08, p<0.001 F45 = 0.58, p>0.45 Regression b = 6.00×10-6 BP - 0.81 b = 0.06log( BZ) - 0.97 b = 9.00×10-6 BC - 0.83 r2 0.01 0.03 0.03 ANOVA F123 = 1.39, p>0.24 F45 = 1.40, p>0.24 F123 = 3.86, p>0.05 Regression b = -2.00×10-6 BP - 1.05 b = 0.11log( BZ) - 1.30 b = 1.00×10-5 BC - 1.07 r2 0.01 0.54 0.04 ANOVA F45 = 0.34, p>0.56 F45 = 50.76, p<0.001 F45 = 2.04, p>0.16 Table 5.2. Regression analyses of the least-squares (model 1) regression between NB-S slopes (b) and biomass (B) in Figure 5.9. Within trophic levels Normalised biomass-size distributions of phytoplankton and mesozooplankton range over four orders of magnitude (1.00 – 9.92 × 104 pg C cell-1 and 1.31 × 105 – 4.29 × 109 pg C ind-1 respectively). The phytoplankton community that was used in this analysis included diatoms, autotrophic dinoflagellates and coccolithophores. Flagellates were excluded as the counting technique could not differentiate between autotrophic and heterotrophic individuals. Only slopes of the phytoplankton (excluding picophytoplankton) differed markedly from that of the entire plankton community (Table 5.3, Fig. 5.10). The mean slope of this phytoplankton community was -0.72±0.11. b r2 Pico- to phytoplankton -0.99 (±0.11) 0.85 Phytoplankton -0.72 (±0.11) 0.79 Mesozooplankton -1.01 (±0.05) 0.97 Table 5.3 Slopes (b) and coefficients of determination (r2) of the least-squares (model 1) regression of within trophic level NB-S spectra. Standard errors are given in brackets. 107 The seasonality in the slopes of within trophic level spectra (Fig. 5.10) follows a pattern similar to that of phytoplankton biomass and mesozooplankton abundance (Fig. 5.1, 5.4a). The scaling exponent of phytoplankton (including picophytoplankton) showed a similar trend to phytoplankton (excluding picoplankton) (Fig. 5.10, Table 5.3). There was a slight lag but similar seasonal pattern in the mesozooplankton scaling exponent. phytoplankton (inc. pico) phytoplankton Slope -0.6 mesozooplankton -1 -1.4 -1.8 J F M A M J J A S O N D Figure 5.10. Seasonal variability of within trophic-level NB-S slopes at the L4 station. The standard deviations of the mean seasonal variability in the NB-S slopes are shown. 5.3.3 Interannual variability Only interannual changes in phytoplankton and phyto- to microzooplankton spectral slopes could be shown (Fig. 5.11) as insufficient years were analysed for picoplankton and mesozooplankton abundance-size structure to enable adequate comparisons to be made for the complete size spectrum. Within trophic level (phytoplankton) slopes showed a different annual pattern to across trophic level (phyto- to microzooplankton) slopes. The peaks in the phytoplankton scaling exponent in 1992, 1995 and 2003 were followed by low exponent years in 1994, and between 1996 and 2000. The slopes of community size spectra that include more than one trophic level, such as that of the phyto- to microzooplankton community shown in Figure 5.11, indicate how efficiently biomass is transferred between the trophic levels. Hence, the transfer efficiency between the phytoplankton and microzooplankton community was lowest in 2000 (1.02) and highest in 2002 (-0.78). The lowest transfer efficiency in 2000 occurred during a year with a higher than average abundance of mesozooplankton (Fig. 5.4) and where the mean annual slope of the available phyto- to mesozooplankton community composites were shallowest with a slope of -1.02. 108 -0.4 phytoplankton phyto-microzoo Slope -0.6 -0.8 -1 Figure The annual cycle in 03 20 02 20 01 20 00 99 average 20 19 98 97 19 19 96 95 19 19 94 93 5.11. 19 19 19 92 -1.2 community (phytoplankton to microzooplankton composite) and within trophic level (phytoplankton) spectra between 1992 and 2003. As the similar seasonal trend in both community composites in Figure 5.8 suggests, there is a significant relationship between the slope of the phyto-microzooplankton and the slope of the phyto-mesozooplankton community (Fig. 5.12). Although the slopes of the two composites are not independent, changes in the transfer efficiency follow a similar trend. Hence, the annual cycle of the phyto-microzooplankton slopes in Figure 5.11 can give some indication of the transfer of biomass to mesozooplankton at L4. Phyto-mesozoo slope -0.80 -1.00 -1.20 -1.40 -1.00 -0.60 Phyto-microzoo slope Figure 5.12. Regression between slopes of the phyto-microzooplankton community and phyto-mesozooplankton community. The straight line is the least-squares (model 1) regression fitted to these data [y = 0.26x – 0.81, r2 = 0.22, F45 = 12.37, p<0.001]. 109 5.4 Discussion 5.4.1 Between trophic levels The size structure of planktonic ecosystems is related either to resource (nutrient and light) or consumer (grazing) control (Verity and Smetacek 1996). Systems with a high nutrient supply are expected to have pelagic communities mainly structured by producers, i.e. ‘bottom up’ control, whereas the pelagic structure of less productive regions is generally determined by ‘top down’ control. There were no significant differences between complete community slopes and those predicted by the model (Platt and Denman 1978). Observed slopes ranged from -1.17 to -1.03 and predicted ones from -1.22 for systems dominated by heterotherms to -0.82 for systems governed by unicells. The mean slope of the complete community (pico- to mesozooplankton) NB-S spectrum of the entire water column (50-0 m) was -1.09. This is close to the mean slope of -1.04 for the pico- to mesozooplankton community that was observed on the AMT in Chapter 4. The steeper mean slope at the coastal station suggests a slightly less tight coupling between trophic levels, i.e. phytoplankton and mesozooplankton, than in the Atlantic Ocean from 50°N and 50°S. Both mean slopes are shallower still than those observed previously in the same picoplankton to mesozooplankton size range in open ocean (Rodríguez and Mullin 1986a; Quiñones et al. 2003) and lake studies (Gaedke 1992b). The seasonal variability in slopes suggests that fluctuations in energy transfer efficiency along the size gradient are a consequence of different food web structures at the coastal station throughout the year. The seasonal changes in the slope clearly show three different trophic configurations of the system: One dominated by picoplankton and flagellates during the winter, another dominated by phytoplankton during the spring diatom and summer dinoflagellate blooms and finally one dominated by mesozooplankton after each bloom (Fig. 5.7). The variability in the seasonal contribution of different components of the food web, reflected in the slopes of NB-S spectra, is similar to the conceptual trophic organisations that were modelled by Rodríguez et al. (2000) at station L4 between October 1992 and January 1994. Their models included a winter microbial web where primary productivity and carbon cycling was based on the smaller size fractions (mainly nanoflagellates and picoplankton). The spring and summer bloom were characterised as a herbivorous, or classical, food web situation and periods in between were termed ‘multivorous’, where heterotrophic processes become more important. The steepest slopes occur during the winter trophic phase and phytoplankton blooms, and the shallowest slopes occur during the increase in mesozooplankton after the spring and summer blooms (Fig. 5.7). In this 110 way, the season varies from a low transfer efficiency in the winter to a higher transfer efficiency up the spectrum with increasing mesozooplankton abundance and biomass after the phytoplankton blooms. This confirms what was found in the Atlantic Ocean in the previous chapter. The tight trophic coupling between producers and consumers is controlled by mesozooplankton and how quickly they are able to respond to a resource pulse, independent of whether the system is stable (winter/ gyre) or unstable (phytoplankton bloom/ upwelling). The seasonal pattern of the slopes at the L4 coastal station were similar to those found by Gilabert (2001) in a Mediterranean coastal lagoon for the same plankton size range. Shallower slopes in late summer were followed by steeper slopes in winter. Gaedke’s (1992b) seasonal analysis in a large oligotrophic lake also followed a similar pattern to that found at L4. Steeper slopes in the picoplankton to 10-4 g C ind-1 (fish) range during late winter and spring were followed by shallower slopes in the summer. After the onset of the phytoplankton spring bloom, a succession of herbivores with a continuous shift toward larger sized organisms takes place. Gasol et al. (1991), on the other hand, did not find a seasonal pattern in the slopes of the linear fit of NB-S spectra in a sulphurous lake in NE Spain. They found that second-order coefficients of polynomial fits best described seasonal changes in spectra as prokaryotic dominance during mixing in the winter months was not represented by the linear fit. However, their normalised spectra had very clear peaks and troughs, which may be a result of the non-steady state nature of a sulphurous lake. All the complete community spectra (pico- to mesozooplankton) at the L4 coastal station were linear with an r2 greater than 0.92. The relatively uniform abundance of the smaller fractions associated with high variability in larger fractions (mesozooplankton) abundance has been noted in previous studies (Sprules and Munawar 1986; Gilabert 2001). The relative stability of the picoplankton and small phytoplankton size fractions during the seasonal cycle (Fig. 5.6) may be because picoplankton grazers (protozoa) are able to respond very quickly to changes in their prey populations owing to their own small sizes, and hence, high turnover rates (Gin et al. 1999). The good relationship between mesozooplankton biomass and community slope is similar to the consumer control situation found in the open ocean in Chapter 4. This contradicts the concept that primary production in coastal seas are resource controlled (Gasol et al. 1997). Productivity does not appear to be directly affecting the degree of the slope and the transfer of energy up the pelagic food web in this coastal aquatic ecosystem. The few studies that have dealt with this hypothesis have been in freshwater lake ecosystems (Sprules and Munawar 1986; 111 Ahrens and Peters 1991; Tittel et al. 1998; Cottingham 1999). They all found the slope to be related to productivity, whereby shallower slopes indicating a higher trophic transfer efficiency occurred in more productive lakes. Cottingham (1999), for example, found that increased phosphorus loading in three Michigan lakes and higher chlorophyll a concentrations resulted in shallower slopes of phytoplankton to mesozooplankton size spectra. Ahrens and Peters (1991) found this same relationship with phosphorus and total biomass in the pico- to mesozooplankton size range in 15 temperate lakes in Southern Quebec. Sprules and Munawar (1986) demonstrated a trend towards shallower slopes of micro- to mesoplankton spectra with increasing eutrophy in 30 lakes in Ontario, as did Tittel et al. (1998) in 29 lakes in Germany. The fact that the transfer of energy up the spectrum is controlled by variations in mesozooplankton biomass here suggests that coupling between phytoplankton and mesozooplankton is more variable than in lakes. This coupling is highest in midsummer and early autumn after the spring and summer phytoplankton bloom when mesozooplankton have had time to respond and their abundance and biomass is highest. Specific properties of component organisms will also influence the flow of matter, such as the possible deleterious effects of diatoms on copepod reproduction (Miralto et al. 1999; Irigoien et al. 2002) and the range of food particles utilised by different mesozooplankton species (Frost 1972; Berggreen et al. 1988), each resulting in different transfer efficiencies up the trophic spectrum. The lack of agreement between phyto- to microzooplankton community slopes and mesozooplankton biomass suggests that changes in mesozooplankton biomass did not affect the transfer efficiency between phytoplankton and microzooplankton. In other words, mesozooplankton feeding did not appear to have an overall effect on the grazing of phytoplankton by microzooplankton. Unlike oligotrophic open ocean regions, where selective feeding by mesozooplankton on microzooplankton appears to be important (Calbet 2001; Broglio et al. 2004), or upwelling areas where autotrophic cells account for more of the diet of mesozooplankton (Kiørboe 1993; Batten et al. 2001), grazing between microzooplankton and phytoplankton may be more balanced in coastal regions. The NB-S model (Platt and Denman 1978) has been criticised as being of limited value in explaining size distributions that include bacteria in their analysis because it assumes a one-way flow of mass and energy from smaller to larger organisms (Gaedke 1992b; Gaedke 1993). Pelagic bacteria depend on dissolved organic matter originating from phytoplankton (Moran and Hodson 1994) and mesozooplankton sloppy feeding (Roy et al. 1989; Møller 2005). Hence, photosynthetically fixed organic carbon 112 that enters the upper ocean is re-cycled in the microbial food web, which does not conform to the NB-S model assumption of unidirectional biomass flux up the spectrum. Nevertheless, the good relationship between the phyto- and micro- to mesozooplankton slopes and the pico- to mesozooplankton slopes (Fig. 5.6), as well as the relative seasonal stability in the normalised biomass of the picoplankton (Fig. 5.5) suggests that the overall bacterial effect on the entire spectrum and the flow of biomass is not significant. A number of studies in a range of ecosystems have also conformed to the linear NB-S model with the inclusion of the picoplankton size fraction (Ahrens and Peters 1991; Tittel et al. 1998; Gin et al. 1999; Cavender-Bares et al. 2001; Cózar et al. 2003; Quiñones et al. 2003). This suggests that the reverse flow, from right to left on the size spectrum, of energy in the trophic food web via the microbial loop is balanced by the forward flow of picoplankton grazing by heterotrophic nanoflagellates (protozoa), and suggests a tight coupling between these two pathways. 5.4.2 Within trophic levels When resource supply is relatively constant, Brown et al. (2004) predict that abundance within a trophic level should decrease with size with a power scaling exponent of -¾, as has been observed empirically for phytoplankton (Belgrano et al. 2002; Li 2002). Slopes of NB-S size spectra within one trophic level provide a rough measure of the allometric scaling of metabolism of that part of the community (Gaedke 1992a). This assumes that weight-specific physiological rates obey allometric relationships with a quarter-power scaling exponent, as explained in the recent metabolic theory of ecology (Brown et al. 2004). Only relative seasonal changes of metabolic scaling can be observed using spectra in this way, however, not absolute values. The mean slope of the reduced phytoplankton community was -0.72±0.11 indicating that abundance (N) decreases with body size (M) as N M-0.72 on seasonal average (Table 5.3) and, therefore, the biomass of phytoplankton per size class (B) increases with body size approximately as B M0.28. If we assume a scaling exponent of ¾ for the allometric relationship between individual metabolic rates (R) and body mass, i.e. -¼ for weight-specific metabolic rates (Fenchel 1974; Peters 1983; Calder 1984; Brown et al. 2004), metabolic activity in each size class, N × R, is about constant: N × R M-0.72 × M0.75 = M0.03. A constant metabolic activity, or energy flux (E), of phytoplankton in each size class indicates that per size class, small phytoplankton may respire approximately the same amount as large phytoplankton, despite differences in biomass. This supports the energetic equivalence rule that states that the amount of energy that each species uses per unit of area is independent of its body size, which has been found in a wide variety of terrestrial animals (Damuth 1981), as well as plants (Enquist et al. 1998; Enquist and Niklas 2001). Further empirical 113 evidence, however, is needed to decide whether this similarity represents a universal phenomenon in ecosystem structure. In chapter 6, further analysis of scaling exponents and their practical application will be discussed in view of the recent developments towards a metabolic theory of ecology (Brown et al. 2004). Seasonal fluctuation in the size scaling exponent, a proxy of the allometric scaling of abundance, biomass and metabolism, may reflect temporal variation in resource input. There are situations, however, where resource acquisition also depends on organism size, such as light harvesting (Finkel et al. 2004) and nutrient uptake by phytoplankton (Hein et al. 1995). The general decrease in intracellular pigment concentration with increasing cell size will alter the size scaling of light limited photosynthesis and growth. Lehman (1988) regarded deviations from regular size distributions as expressions of the unique organism-specific adaptations developed by constituent organisms in response to the constraints imposed by nature. The dynamic environment of the marine system does not allow the community to reach equilibrium (Hutchinson 1961), and hence the allometric theory of ecology cannot be satisfied (Li et al. 2004). In this way, the more negative slopes of phytoplankton in winter at L4 may reflect some resource limitation, such as light or nutrient availability (Finkel 2001). By contrast, the less negative scaling exponent during the spring and summer bloom may reflect some resource input, brought about by stratification and stability. These findings are similar to Gaedke’s (1993) who found that the metabolic activity of phytoplankton, as estimated from the size spectrum, reached its maximum in spring (April-June). She suggested that during this period P:B ratios and fluxes of phytoplankton were high. Although the scaling exponent of phytoplankton (including picophytoplankton) did not obey the allometric quarter-power of mass rule, it showed a similar trend to that of the reduced phytoplankton population, i.e. that which excluded picoplankton, suggesting some robustness in seasonal trend at this scale. The delay in the similar pattern of the mesozooplankton scaling exponent reflects the lag between the resource pulse and acquisition of that energy input, i.e. grazing and biomass accumulation by the mesozooplankton population. The seasonal pattern in the scaling exponent may also reflect the contribution of different sizes within that trophic level. In other words, the steeper NB-S slope of phytoplankton and mesozooplankton during the winter suggest that smaller sizes are predominant in that part of the community whereas the shallower exponent values during the summer and spring blooms indicate a higher contribution of larger-sized organisms. 114 5.5 Conclusions During a seasonal cycle at the coastal L4 station, slopes of pelagic community size spectra were steeper in winter and during the spring and summer phytoplankton bloom and shallower after each bloom. Three main functional size ranges determined seasonal irregularities: Picoplankton and flagellates, nanoplankton-microplankton autotrophs, and herbivorous organisms. Changes in mesozooplankton were crucial in influencing the shape of the normalised biomass-size distribution and controlling the flux of energy up the food web. This suggests that the plankton energy transfer efficiency at L4 was controlled by the consumer’s dynamics. The mean scaling exponent of the phytoplankton-only NB-S spectrum was close to the universal ¾-power of body mass found in allometric studies of a broad spectrum of organisms. This suggests that energy flux within a trophic level is invariant with respect to body size and supports the energetic equivalence rule. The more negative exponent values in winter reflected a resource limitation and higher contribution of smaller-size organisms within each trophic level and the higher values during the blooms reflected a higher turnover rate and predominance of large-sized organisms. 115 CHAPTER 6: SCALING THE METABOLIC BALANCE IN THE OCEANS 6.1 Introduction The role of the ocean’s biota in the global CO2 budget remains unresolved. This role is mainly dependent on the metabolic balance of the planktonic community in the upper ocean, i.e. the difference between the fixation of organic carbon by photosynthetically active phytoplankton and its remineralisation by plankton community respiration (del Giorgio and Duarte 2002). The part that plankton play in the global CO2 budget, however, remains the subject of much debate (del Giorgio and Cole 1997; del Giorgio et al. 1997; Geider 1997; Williams 1998; Duarte et al. 1999; Williams and Bowers 1999). Recent studies suggest that microbial community respiration (CR) exceeds gross primary production (GP) in large areas of the upper ocean and that these regions are net heterotrophic (del Giorgio et al. 1997; Duarte and Agustí 1998; Duarte et al. 2001; Morán et al. 2004). These oceanic regions behave as potential net sources of CO2 and consumers of organic matter and O2, with further implications for global biogeochemical cycles. Hence, knowledge of this balance is essential in evaluating the role that plankton play in the oceanic carbon cycle as this may be important in regulating biosphere response to global climate change. However, resolving the extent of such heterotrophic areas is hindered by the low spatiotemporal resolution achievable by point sampling and onboard or in situ traditional incubation methods (Serret et al. 2001; Serret et al. 2002; Karl et al. 2003). This problem will be tackled in this chapter from a new macroecological perspective based on metabolic scaling theory (Brown et al. 2004). 6.1.1 Allometry Superimposed on the complexities and diversities of living systems are regular patterns that scale with size. Allometry is the relationship between the size of an organism and some functional biological property, and can typically be described by a simple power law of the form: Y=Y0Mb These equations relate some dependent biological variable, Y, such as growth rate, to body mass, M, through two coefficients, an allometric exponent, b, and a normalisation constant, Y0, characteristic of the type of organism. The extraordinary universality of biological scaling, or allometry, was first documented for metabolic rate versus body size by Kleiber (1932) and has since been discussed (Peters 1983; Calder 1984; Marquet et al. 2005). These power laws tend to have exponents b that are multiples of ¼: whole organism metabolic rate scales as ¾; development time, lifespan and other 116 biological times as ¼; and heart rate and other rates as -¼. These quarter-power scaling exponents of body mass or length have been found to be true for a number of properties of organisms, from physiological (Niklas and Enquist 2001) to ecological (Enquist et al. 1998), and for a broad spectrum of organisms from plants (Niklas 2004) to animals (Damuth 1981; Damuth 1987) across a range of ecosystems. The most comprehensive theoretical work has suggested that the universal scaling law reflects fractal-like designs of resource distribution networks (West et al. 1997; West et al. 1999a; West et al. 1999b; Brown et al. 2002; West et al. 2002; Enquist et al. 2003; West and Brown 2005). Recent developments on this topic have mainly been driven by Brown and co-workers (2004) with their metabolic theory of ecology, which attempts to explain the structure and dynamics of ecosystems in terms of material and energetic fluxes. They use first principles of thermodynamics, chemical reaction kinetics and fractal-like structures in their principal equation relating metabolism to body size and temperature (Gillooly et al. 2001; West et al. 2002). This theory enables predictions of metabolic rate control on ecological processes, including rates of biomass production and respiration, at all levels of organisation from individuals to the whole biosphere (Allen et al. 2005). 6.1.2 Abundance-size structure A parallel development in ecological research has shown a power law dependence of size on the total abundance of a range of organisms between trophic levels in a community (Griffiths 1992; Schmid et al. 2000; Quintana et al. 2002; Quiroga et al. 2005). The pioneering work of Sheldon et al. (1972; 1977) found this empirical pattern in the open ocean, where total biomass was invariant with respect to body size across a range of pelagic organisms and the scaling exponent varied around -1. The normalised biomass-size spectrum model was developed to explain this relationship and represent the flow of energy from smaller to larger organisms (Platt and Denman 1978). Previous chapters have already shown how the analysis of plankton normalised biomass-size spectra can provide insight into the functioning of pelagic communities. The practical applications of these size-frequency distributions will be presented in light of the allometric relationships between size and metabolic properties, such as growth and respiration. 117 In this chapter empirical models were developed, as part of a collaboration with Ángel López-Urrutia (Centro Oceanográfico de Gijón, Spain), based on the theoretical foundation of allometric models (West et al. 1997; West et al. 1999b; Gillooly et al. 2001; Brown et al. 2002; West et al. 2002; Enquist et al. 2003) and the metabolic theory of ecology proposed by Brown et al. (2004). Chapter 2 explains the methodology and theory in more detail. A large dataset of laboratory respiration and growth measurements in the literature on individual plankton species at a range of temperatures and irradiances was collected (Appendix). These data formed the basis of allometric models, which scale the respiration and production of an individual cell and with knowledge of its local abundance all the individual rates can be summed to estimate community respiration (CR) and production (NPP): (1) (2) where n is the number of individuals with different body sizes, Mi, in the plankton community, each with a metabolic, Bi, and production, Pi, rate. The normalisation constants, b0 and d0, are independent of body size, and e-E/kT is the Boltzmann’s factor which takes into account the effects of ambient absolute temperature, T, where Er and Ep are the average activation energy for metabolic and photosynthetic reactions respectively and k is Boltzmann’s constant. The theory was extended for net phytoplankton production (NPP) to include the limiting effect of light, so that the relationship between individual production, Pi, and photosynthetically active radiation, PAR, includes the Michaelis-Menten photosynthetic light response PAR/(PAR + Km) where Km is the half-saturation constant. These scaling equations were applied to plankton abundance-size distributions from earlier AMT cruises. The allometric estimates were compared to traditional in situ measurements of respiration and production by the oxygen Winkler titration and 14 C- fixation method, with the aim of establishing allometry as a complementary technique for estimating the metabolic balance in the upper ocean. Allometric models of phytoplankton growth have previously been developed (Banse 1982) and applied to population size structure data (Joint and Pomroy 1988; Joint 1991) to show that cell size can be used to estimate the potential production of natural 118 phytoplankton assemblages growing under optimum conditions. However, only maximal growth rates were modelled, which does not represent the situation in the oligotrophic open ocean where phytoplankton production (Marañón et al. 2000; Marañón et al. 2001) and growth rates (Marañón 2005) are nutrient limited. A number of scaling models have also been developed for mesozooplankton growth; the most comprehensive, observed the allometric relationship as a function of temperature and food (Hirst and Bunker 2003). Here, the planktonic community will be integrated to estimate the metabolic balance of the ocean. In this way, the main objectives are: To develop allometric models of community respiration and production based on the metabolic theory of ecology (Brown et al. 2004) To validate the estimates of community respiration and production using the allometric method with direct in situ measurements To estimate the metabolic balance of the Atlantic ocean and discuss implications 119 6.2 Empirical allometric models 6.2.1 Respiration Almost 1000 data points of individual bacterial, phytoplankton, microzooplankton and mesozooplankton respiration rates at a range of temperatures were collected from an extensive literature survey (Appendix). The slope of the relationship between the temperature function 1/kT and weight-corrected respiration was -Er = -0.62 eV (Fig. 6.1a, 95%CI: -0.66 to -0.57 eV) which is not significantly different from the average activation energy for metabolic reactions (Ernest et al. 2003). Temperature had a very large effect on bacterial respiration but less of an effect on the rest of the community. Temperature-corrected respiration scaled allometrically with body mass with a slope that was higher than the expected ¾-power predicted by theory (Fig. 6.1b, 0.90, 95%CI: 0.89 to 0.91). This is mainly because planktonic organisms do not conform to the theoretical assumption of uniform constant density (West et al. 1999a). Phytoplankton body mass in carbon (Mi) is not proportional to body volume, v, but scales as a power function of volume, Mi ~ v0.712 (Strathmann 1967). Thus, when body size is expressed as biovolume the universal ¾ scaling appears again (0.77, 95%CI: 0.76 to 0.77). The least-squares multiple regression of the complete community model was highly significant (p<0.001) with an r2 of 0.98. a.) b.) Figure 6.1. Effects of body size and temperature on planktonic respiration rates from bacteria (triangles) and phytoplankton (circles) to micro- and mesozooplankton (squares and crosses). a) Effect of the temperature function (1/kT) on mass-corrected respiration rate and b) the relationship between temperature-corrected respiration rate and body mass. 120 6.2.2 Primary production The singular effect of each variable on the primary production rate of individual phytoplankton collected from the literature is shown in Figure 6.2. Although somewhat variable, production rates corrected for the effects of body mass and PAR decreased as 1/kT increased with a slope of -0.29 eV (Fig. 6.2a, 95%CI: -0.35 to -0.22 eV). This value was close to the predicted activation energy for photosynthetic reactions of 0.32 eV (Allen et al. 2005). The effect of body size on temperature and irradiance-corrected production rate was linear on a double log plot (Fig. 6.2b). The allometric scaling exponent for body carbon was again higher than ¾ when mass was expressed in carbon (1.05, 95%CI: 1.03 to 1.07) but close to ¾ when body size was converted to cell volume (0.77, 95%CI: 0.77 to 0.78). a.) b.) c.) Figure 6.2. Effects of body size, temperature and irradiance on phytoplankton biomass production rate. a) Effect of temperature on production rates corrected for the effects of body mass and light, b) light and temperature normalized production versus body size 121 and c) Michaelis-Menten light-saturation curve for body size and temperature corrected phytoplankton production. The singular effect of irradiance on corrected primary production rate presented the typical hyperbolic relation of a limiting substrate (Fig. 6.2c). The half-saturation coefficient (Km) was 1.51 ± 0.17 mol photons m-2 d-1. Given that irradiance was fitted to a Michaelis-Menten light-saturation relationship (equation 2), a non-linear leastsquares method using a Gauss-Newton algorithm was applied to the phytoplankton production model to enable multiple regression statistics to be performed. The multiple regression was significant (p<0.001) with an r2 of 0.92. 6.3 Comparison between allometric estimates with traditional in situ measurements Using the coefficient values from the empirical data analyses (Table 6.1), the allometric respiration and production models (equations 1 and 2) were applied to real plankton samples collected on early AMT cruises (Fig. 6.3a). The abundance-size structure of the plankton community, in situ temperature and photosynthetically active radiation (PAR), as well as direct measurements of respiration and production (Winkler titration and 14C method respectively) were obtained at each station from BODC (2005). Normalisation constant Allometric exponent Activation energy (b0, d0) (Mi) (-Ea) Community respiration 0.81 (0.95) 0.90 (0.004) -0.62 (0.024) Primary production -11.28 (1.44) 1.05 (0.011) -0.29 (0.036) Rate Table 6.1. Summary statistics for the metabolic scaling of the individual physiological rates of marine plankton. Data shown are the coefficient values of the models (equation 1 and 2) and standard error in brackets. An ordinary least-squares multiple regression was fitted to the model for community respiration and a non-linear leastsquares method using a Gauss-Newton algorithm for phytoplankton production, where the non-linear PAR term was included. 122 The abundance-size structure of the plankton community at these stations showed a negative linear relationship on a double log plot (Fig. 6.3b). The variability of the bacterial abundance was relatively stable throughout the AMT transects. Phytoplankton abundance was the most variable component of the microbial community. a.) b.) Lat (+ve˚N) Lon (+ve˚E) Figure 6.3. a) AMT stations where plankton data, temperature, PAR, as well as direct respiration and production measurements by the Winkler titration and 14 C method were -1 available respectively. b) The abundance (cells ml ) and size (pg C cell-1) structure of plankton from bacteria and phytoplankton to zooplankton that was available from these stations. 123 6.3.1 Respiration The relationship between estimates of CR rate using the allometric model versus the direct respiration measurements using the O2 Winkler titration method that were available for the range of AMT stations is shown in Figure 6.4. Although there was much scatter in the relationship, the correlation between measured and estimated values was significant. A paired T-test between measured and estimated respiration rates showed that there was not a significant difference between the means (T14 = 0.20, p>0.84) suggesting they were equal. Although there was a limited number of stations where all the required data was available (n = 15) there is confidence that the allometric model of community respiration is a reliable method of estimating respiration, complementary to in situ or ship-board experimentation. Figure 6.4. Relationship between the in situ measured community respiration and predicted estimates based on allometric theory. Data were log-transformed to normalise variances. The straight line is the structural (reduced major axis) relationship and the dashed line is the 1:1 fit. Error bars indicate the 95% confidence intervals for the mean. No error bars are shown when these are not available from in situ data. 124 6.3.2 Primary production The relationship between the allometric estimates of net primary production applied to available AMT data and the corresponding 14 C-fixation measurements of photosynthesis was highly significant (Fig. 6.5a). However, the allometric estimates were significantly higher than the direct measurements (T222 = 2.61, p<0.01). This is not surprising considering that 14 C uptake is usually lower than GP and seems to approximate NPP depending on how much heterotrophic activity is occurring. To estimate the metabolic balance of a planktonic community, CR needs to be compared to GP, which can be estimated from the allometric model (equation 2) as the sum of NPP and phytoplankton respiration. These calculated rates can then be compared to gross primary O2 production estimated by in situ light-dark bottle incubations (Fig. 6.5b). Even though there was a low number of paired observations (n = 14), there was no significant difference between both methods (T13 = -1.25, p>0.23). Figure 6.5. Relationship between in situ measured a) net and b) gross primary production versus the estimates based on allometric theory. Data were log-transformed to normalise variances. The straight line is the structural (reduced major axis) relationship and the dashed line is the 1:1 fit. Error bars indicate the 95% confidence intervals for the mean. No error bars are shown when these are not available from in situ data. 125 6.4 Metabolic balance in the Atlantic The good agreement in the allometric models (equations 1 and 2), both at the organism and community levels, enabled us to estimate the metabolic balance of planktonic communities using all the information available on plankton population size structure. In other words, the models of CR and NPP were applied to past AMT cruises where picoplankton and microplankton counts, as well as temperature and PAR data were available during AMT cruises 1-6. The metabolic balance of the Atlantic, i.e. the relationship between CR and GP was observed (Fig. 6.6). Any points lying below the dashed line indicate a community that is net autotrophic and points that fall above show net heterotrophy. The average gross production required for aquatic ecosystems to become autotrophic, also known as the threshold point of metabolic balance, was 0.48 mmol O2 m-3 d-1. Figure 6.6. Relationship between discrete (volumetric) gross primary production (GP) and community respiration (CR) estimates based on allometric theory. The dashed line is the reduced major axis relationship and the solid line is the 1:1 relationship. The GP where both lines intersect is the threshold GP for metabolic balance (GPP = CR). 126 It has been argued that areal, or depth-integrated (m2), values compensate for metabolic imbalances over the vertical profile (Williams 1998; Serret et al. 2001). However, AMT cruises 1-6 only sampled for phytoplankton abundance at two or three euphotic depths per station, which limits the evaluation of depth-integrated balance using the allometric method. This may result in some biased integrated estimates when the depth of maximum production is not appropriately resolved (Robinson et al. 2002). Nevertheless, this is usually also the case for onboard incubations as a result of the limitation in the number of simulated light and temperature conditions that can be reproduced. In any case, the geographic distribution of net community production (NCP), where NCP = GP – CR, was observed along the AMT cruise tracks (Fig. 6.7). It is apparent that areas of the ocean with higher production, i.e. upwelling and temperate regions, tend to be net autotrophic whereas oligotrophic areas of the ocean, on the other hand, are predominantly heterotrophic. Figure 6.7. Spatial distribution of plankton metabolic balance estimated using the allometric method. Locations with negative net community production (NCP<0, blue squares) are net sources of CO2 while locations with positive NCP (red circles) are net autotrophic. 127 6.5 Discussion Implications for the global CO2 budget The extensive compilation of individual microplankton respiration and biomass production rates (Fig. 6.1, 6.2) supports the predictions of metabolic theory (equations 1 and 2). Furthermore, although there was much scatter in the relationships between estimated and measured CR and GP, they were highly significant (Fig. 6.4, 6.5b). In this way, allometric models offer a viable way of estimating the metabolic balance of the upper ocean at both the individual and community level. The threshold of GP that separates heterotrophic and autotrophic communities using the scaling method was within the lower range of values reported for incubation measurements (del Giorgio et al. 1997; Duarte and Agustí 1998; Williams 1998; Duarte et al. 1999; Williams and Bowers 1999; Duarte et al. 2001; Serret et al. 2002; Robinson and Williams 2005). When respiration and production rates were depth-integrated this complementary approach supports the hypothesis of prevailing net heterotrophy in oligotrophic areas of the Atlantic Ocean (del Giorgio et al. 1997; Duarte and Agustí 1998; Duarte et al. 1999; Duarte et al. 2001; Morán et al. 2004) and not the view that the open ocean is in metabolic balance (Williams 1998; Williams and Bowers 1999). These heterotrophic communities must partially rely on allochthonous organic carbon input (Duarte and Agustí 1998; Duarte et al. 2001). However, the source of this imported C in the oligotrophic open ocean is not clear (Kirchman 1997). Lateral inputs by aeolian transport of terrigenous organic matter from land (Cornell et al. 1995) or DOM import from neighbouring productive areas (Agustí et al. 2001), as well as mesozooplankton excretion and messy feeding (Banse 1995) are now considered to be important. Sufficient allochthonous material will drive the biota of oligotrophic aquatic ecosystems toward net heterotrophy and, thus, potential sources of CO2. The allometric model of community respiration included the metabolism of mesozooplankton, which is normally excluded from in situ incubations. Global assessments of mesozooplankton respiration in the ocean have recently estimated their total respiration as 1.1 Pmol C a-1 (Hernández-León and Ikeda 2005b), which is 17-32% of primary production in the ocean (Hernández-León and Ikeda 2005a). The model presented here, thus, provides a unique opportunity to observe the effects of the entire planktonic community on the overall metabolic balance of the upper ocean. 128 Traditional incubations versus metabolic theory The metabolic balance of the open ocean depends on proper spatial and temporal scale integration (Williams 1998; Karl et al. 2003). However, conventional in situ incubations are constrained by their low spatial resolution (Serret et al. 2001; Serret et al. 2002) because of the time-consuming methods available for directly measuring production and respiration. The allometric models presented here would only be restricted by the number of plankton samples one can analyse for size structure either based on preserved samples or in near real-time. The growing use of automated counting and imaging instruments will therefore make metabolic theory an increasingly practical option. The allometric models have the added advantage that they can be applied to historical preserved samples or past datasets. This would further increase the spatiotemporal scales of the metabolic balance in the upper oceans and improve our understanding of the global CO2 budget. Also, the immediate fixation of a plankton sample upon collection avoids some problems of incubation methods as a result of artificial containment and manipulation of planktonic organisms. Containment may cause two types of error; (i) the sample size may involve the exclusion of part of the heterotrophic community, (ii) the container may impact the enclosed community giving rise to “bottle” effects. The application of metabolic theory provides the opportunity to understand the possible causes for the imbalance in ecosystem metabolism. Information on individual rates of production and respiration of each organism in a community are provided, enabling the determinants of any variability to be identified. Size fractionated techniques have been used in direct in situ incubations (Marañón et al. 2001; Morán et al. 2004) but information on individual cells is still unobtainable. Food web structure influences the degree of heterotrophy of pelagic ecosystems, as well as primary production (Serret et al. 2001; Smith and Kemp 2001). This suggests that the variation of CR with GP may be different when analysed within or between different communities. The allometric method, therefore, provides a way of assessing the nature and determinants of the metabolic balance in different oceanic regions. Bacterial respiration accounted for the majority (49%) of CR in the Atlantic. Their abundance, and consequently, respiration was relatively stable, however, compared to larger plankton (Fig. 6.3b). This suggests that fluctuations in the abundance of largesized phytoplankton, and their consequent production, influence the metabolic balance of the upper oceans. In bloom situations, larger phytoplankton, commonly diatoms, become more significant (Irigoien et al. 2004). Their production has an important influence on the overall metabolism, leading to a net autotrophic community that acts 129 as a potential net sink of CO2. Thus, although the main players in CR are the picoplankton, the overall drivers in the metabolic balance are the large, bloom-forming, phytoplankton. This supports the view that changes in production, not respiration, control the transition from net heterotrophy to net autotrophy (Duarte and Agustí 1998; Duarte et al. 2001; Arístegui and Harrison 2002). Radiocarbon 14 C-fixation is the standard method of estimating phytoplankton productivity (Steeman Nielsen 1951). Although it has been criticised for a number of reasons (Banse 2002), it is a very precise and sensitive method of estimating the productivity of autotrophic pelagic organisms (Marra 2003). The 14 C method can, however, underestimate gross primary production (Holligan et al. 1984b). The longer the incubation time and depending on the level of heterotrophic activity, the closer the method is an estimate of NPP, as organisms will also be respiring. The fraction of GP lost to algal respiration in the 14 C-based estimates varies widely but averages at about 35% (Duarte and Cebrián 1996). Although the allometric model of production (equation 2) estimates net production (NPP), the metabolic balance (GP:CR) can be observed by calculating GP, which involves the simple subtraction of CR from NPP. The Winkler oxygen titration is another highly sensitive method of measuring respiration and gross production but even this method is not without its constraints (Robinson et al. 2002; Robinson and Williams 2005). It must also be mentioned that the precision of these direct methods becomes increasingly significant but harder to obtain in areas of the oceans where the rates are very low, such as the oligotrophic gyres. The importance of temperature in controlling metabolic activity has been shown (Fig. 6.1a, 6.2a). This highlights how vital it is for in situ incubations to maintain temperature constant and equal to that at which the water was collected. A small rise in temperature by just a few degrees can increase respiration, particularly bacterial respiration significantly (Fig. 6.1b). These higher measures of community respiration would cause an overestimation of the extent of heterotrophy, with subsequent errors in the interpretation of oceanic C flux. A source of possible respiration overestimation in this study is the contribution of inactive bacteria. The dormant or stationary phases of these organisms appear to be significant in natural assemblages (Smith and del Giorgio 2003). Fortunately, there are promising techniques involving the flow cytometric sorting of cells marked with various probes that can distinguish between inactive and active microbes (Zubkov et al. 2002). Hence, although the allometric method may have overestimated bacterial respiration in 130 the values presented in this chapter, future developments may lead to a reduction of this potential error. Further caveats Production of dissolved organic matter (DOM) was not taken into account in the estimates of GP. The percent extracellular release of DOC can be ca. 10-20% and higher under oligotrophic conditions (Teira et al. 2001) and, hence, its exclusion from the calculations results in an overestimation of the threshold GP for metabolic balance. The threshold value would therefore lie even further within the lower limit reported from data on incubation measurements. Another variable that was not taken into account in the allometric model of production is the ‘package effect’ of phytoplankton. The ability of phytoplankton cells to acclimate to changes in irradiance is size dependent (Finkel et al. 2004). Smaller cells are better adapted to low light levels because of their higher intracellular pigment concentrations. Nutrient uptake is also size dependent whereby smaller cells have higher rates of uptake per unit biomass due to their higher surface area to volume ratios (Hein et al. 1995). These models do not intend to encompass all the sources of variability, both from the external environment and due to interspecific differences. Patterns in the residual variation not explained by the models can serve to identify the possible causes. Only one volume measurement was considered representative of all the individuals of a species (Kovala and Larrance 1966) in the past microplankton AMT samples. This is an over-simplification because cell volume and morphology can change during the cell cycle. With the use of automated and instantaneous counting and sizing instruments the empirical models presented here can be applied to provide estimates of primary production and respiration rates with less potential error. Energetic equivalence rule The quarter-power rule extends to the population density spectrum of organisms within a trophic level where the scaling exponent is close to -¾. This trend has been found in many organisms from a range of habitats, including freshwater algae (Agustí and Kalff 1989), marine phytoplankton (Belgrano et al. 2002; Li 2002), terrestrial plants (Enquist et al. 1998; Belgrano et al. 2002), as well as animals (Damuth 1981; Damuth 1987). Given that population density decreases with individual body size as -¾, if individual resource use scales as ¾, then the rate of resource or energy use of the organisms is invariant with respect to body size (Enquist and Niklas 2001). This is known as the “energetic equivalence rule” and suggests that random environmental fluctuations and interspecific competition act over evolutionary time to keep energy control of all species 131 within similar bounds (Damuth 1981). In this chapter, the universality of the quarterpower exponent of metabolism (respiration) was confirmed (Fig. 6.1b, 6.2b). Hence, the population energy use of marine microplankton is independent of body size, and can be assumed to conform to the energetic equivalence rule. 6.6 Conclusions Metabolic theory (Brown et al. 2004) has offered an opportunity to extend our understanding of the structure and function of pelagic ecosystems. Empirical models were developed to scale the respiration and growth of an individual plankton organism to that of the complete planktonic community. With knowledge of an individual’s local abundance, the individual rates can be summed to provide estimates of the metabolic balance of the upper ocean. The threshold point of metabolic balance in the Atlantic Ocean was 0.48 mmol O2 m3, below which, communities were net heterotrophic and potential sources of CO2. Although bacterial activity accounted for the majority of community respiration, their abundance, and consequently, respiration remained stable in the Atlantic relative to larger-sized plankton. In this way, the main determinants of the metabolic balance are larger phytoplankton that generally characterise blooms. Further knowledge of ocean biology will enable feedback mechanisms between the climate and the oceanic carbon cycle to be evaluated (Sarmiento and Le Quéré 1996). Hence, the practical application of metabolic theory is a promising way forward in the field of global biogeochemistry. 132 CHAPTER 7: DISCUSSION The importance of organism size in structuring the rates and pathways of material transfer in the marine pelagic food web, and consequently the oceanic carbon cycle is well recognised. Evaluating the role that plankton play in the global CO2 budget, however, is hindered by the complexities of species interactions in the upper ocean. Community size structure offers a holistic ataxonomic approach to understand how biogeochemically diverse species influence the oceanic carbon cycle. The basin scale analysis of plankton abundance-size distributions in the Atlantic Ocean between 49°S to 67°N has provided the basis for testing the hypothesis set out in Chapter 1: Hypothesis: Variations in the abundance-size structure of plankton can be used as a descriptor of the rates of material transfer in the upper ocean in different productive regions Superimposed on large scale spatial variability is a temporal dimension. To address seasonality, over ten years of weekly sampling off the coast of Plymouth have been used to investigate seasonal trends in the flow of energy up the food web. Abundance-size relationships of organisms within communities reflect characteristics of the underlying ecosystem dynamics given that body size is dependent on metabolic activity and the ecological regulation of population density. In this way, the recent metabolic theory of ecology (Brown et al. 2004) has provided the basis for using an allometric approach to investigate the metabolic balance of the Atlantic Ocean and a unique opportunity to identify the main drivers of trophic status in the plankton community. This complementary approach to in situ incubation measurements will facilitate ecosystem analysis and enable predictions to be made of the future potential impact of global warming. The main objectives outlined in Chapter 1 were as follows: 1. To examine patterns in community size structure 2. To identify factors controlling the slope of plankton size spectra 3. To investigate practical applications of allometry in aquatic ecosystems 133 Although plankton size spectra were highly spatiotemporally variable, this large dataset has enabled macroscale and long term patterns to be distinguished across a range of productive systems for a major ocean basin. Once it was confirmed that slopes of plankton size spectra were a direct indicator of the transfer of biomass from lower to higher trophic levels (Chapter 4, Fig. 4.14) this gave confidence in the application of plankton size spectra as an important tool in observing the trophic status and structure of aquatic ecosystems. An important finding was that oligotrophic areas of the open ocean were no less efficient in the transfer of energy between phytoplankton and mesozooplankton than productive systems. This is contrary to the common perception that the classical linear food chain, predominant in upwelling regions, has a more efficient flow of biomass up the food web because of the fewer number of steps to higher trophic levels. These findings thus contradict recent theoretical studies that predict steeper abundance-body mass relationships in more stable environments (Jennings and Mackinson 2003; Makarieva et al. 2004). Further to this, the results presented contrast with plankton size spectra studies conducted in freshwater lake ecosystems, which have shown a more efficient transfer of material between lower and higher trophic levels with increasing productivity. The reasons suggested for this difference with freshwater systems are basic differences in the community size structure and spatiotemporal environment in lakes compared to marine ecosystems. Superimposed on the spatial trend was a seasonal component where an uncoupling between producers and consumers was observed during the low productive winter, and highly productive spring and summer phytoplankton blooms. This coupling became tighter after each bloom as mesozooplankton had time to respond to the resource pulse. The increase in mesozooplankton numbers enabled a more efficient transfer of biomass up the food chain in both oceanic and coastal systems. In this way, mesozooplankton were found to limit the flow of material to higher trophic levels. After reaching a certain biomass, ca. 1000 mg C m-2 in both the open ocean and continental shelf, no further increase in mesozooplankton could influence this coupling and flux of carbon up the pelagic food web. The transfer of energy up the trophic food web, or NB-S slope, is independent of ecosystem productivity in both coastal and oceanic systems, and depends on how quickly mesozooplankton are able to respond to any food input. In other words, it depends on the stability of the system, given that a more unstable system may reduce the predator to prey encounter rates. Their response time will also depend on 134 temperature, given that mesozooplankton have faster population growth rates in warmer waters, and the population structure of mesozooplankton, since some species can develop at a faster rate to others. Given that the population density and metabolism of phytoplankton scaled close to -¾ and ¾-powers of body mass respectively suggests that energy flux within this primary trophic level is invariant with respect to body size. This supports the energetic equivalence rule found in a wide range of plants (Agustí and Kalff 1989; Enquist et al. 1998; Enquist and Niklas 2001; Belgrano et al. 2002; Li 2002) and animals (Damuth 1981; Damuth 1987) in both terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems. The more negative scaling exponent values found in winter at the coastal station reflected a resource limitation whereas the higher values during the spring and summer phytoplankton blooms reflected a higher turnover rate. The allometric models of community respiration and production that have been empirically developed offer another approach to understand the role of plankton in the global CO2 budget. It has been shown that areas of the ocean below the threshold point of autotrophy, 0.48 mmol O2 m-3 d-1, were net heterotrophic and acting as potential sources of CO2. Allochthonous organic carbon is required to fuel this heterotrophy, particularly to bacteria, which are the main component of microbial respiration. However, the relatively constant abundance of bacteria throughout the range of production regimes sampled on the AMT indicated that they were not the main controllers of the metabolic balance. In view of the large scale variability in their abundance and consequently production, large, mainly bloom-forming, phytoplankton are suggested as important determinants of this balance between autotrophy and heterotrophy. This presents an alternative focus to the view that bacterial respiration is the major determinant in a community’s trophic state. The allometric models can also provide simple predictions of the potential impact of global warming. A rise in sea temperature will result in an increase in both production and respiration. However, given that the activation energy for respiration (0.62 eV) is higher than that for production (0.29 eV), respiration will increase more relative to production. This may lead to a higher threshold point of autotrophy and result in surface oceanic waters becoming more heterotrophic and a greater potential source of CO2. 135 Further work The results presented in this thesis suggest the following as productive topics for future research: Observe and evaluate the interannual variability of the complete plankton community (including mesozooplankton) at L4 Increase the latitudinal and spatiotemporal range of plankton size spectra observations to clarify whether the dome-shape latitudinal pattern is related to global biodiversity patterns Application of metabolic theory on abundance-size data of phytoplankton and mesozooplankton to predict a number of individual to ecosystem properties, such as species diversity and turnover rates Apply theoretical body-size dependent sinking rates of plankton to the empirical data to predict this fraction of photosynthetically fixed organic carbon export The first suggestion can easily be fulfilled given that preserved mesozooplankton samples are available since 1988. According to the results presented in the thesis, the interannual variability of plankton size spectra should show a trend towards tighter trophic coupling with increasing sea surface temperature (Fig. 4.6a). However, studies have shown that climate change will uncouple trophic interactions between phytoplankton and mesozooplankton as a result of the expanding temporal mismatch with the resource pulse (Edwards and Richardson 2004; Winder and Schindler 2004). Hence, analysis of this historical set of time-series samples should provide some interesting results. The second possible topic of research would also be productive but would involve sample or data acquisition of the abundance-size structure of marine plankton in additional oceanic areas, such as the Southern Ocean, to increase the latitudinal range of this macroscale analysis. Metabolic theory is somewhat at a stage of infancy but its potential application could yield some very important developments in biological oceanography. The last potential future area of research is a viable option given the well established models of bodysize dependent phytoplankton sinking (Kiørboe 1993). However, the theory would require further development to incorporate the effects of the physical environment on the sinking flux, which is a less easily attainable target. 136 Conclusions Scaling relationships may be the future of macroecological and comparative studies. This thesis has applied normalised-biomass size spectra (Platt and Denman 1978) and the metabolic theory of ecology (Brown et al. 2004) to large-scale abundance-size distributions of plankton. A conceptual synthesis of individual biological rates with population and community dynamics has enabled ecosystem processes, such as trophic status, to be predicted. 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