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Plankton metabolism in the Greenland Sea during the polar summer of 2007

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Abstract

The polar summer metabolism of the planktonic communities in the Greenland Sea was surveyed in July 2007. Planktonic metabolism showed great variability across the studied area, with on average, higher metabolic rates in the Fram Strait-Svalbard region than along the Greenland Current. A significant fraction (47%) of the planktonic communities in the Fram Strait-Svalbard region were net heterotrophic, suggesting that increased respiration rates with further warming may lead the planktonic communities at this region to act as net CO2 sources. The thresholds gross primary production for metabolic balance (i.e., gross primary production = community respiration) was much higher in the European sector of the Arctic than reported for the Southern Ocean, suggesting that heterotrophic metabolism is more prevalent in the European sector of the Arctic than in the Southern Ocean, indicating high allochthonous inputs in the Arctic region.

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Acknowledgments

This research is a contribution to the ATOS project, a Spanish contribution to the International Polar Year, funded by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (ref. POL2006-00550/CTM). We thank the crew of R/V Hespérides for support, S. Agusti for providing chlorophyll data, and S. Lasternas for providing information on community structure. A. R. d. G. was supported by the Metaoceans project, funded under the EU Marie Curie EST program (MEST-CT-2005-019678).

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  1. Department of Global Change Research, IMEDEA (CSIC-UIB) Instituto Mediterráneo de Estudios Avanzados, Miquel Marqués 21, 07190, Esporles, Spain

    Aurore Regaudie-de-Gioux & Carlos M. Duarte

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  1. Aurore Regaudie-de-Gioux
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  2. Carlos M. Duarte
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Correspondence to Aurore Regaudie-de-Gioux.

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This article belongs to the special issue “Impacts of climate warming on marine and freshwater polar ecosystems,” coordinated by S. Agustí, M. Sejr, and C. M. Duarte.

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Regaudie-de-Gioux, A., Duarte, C.M. Plankton metabolism in the Greenland Sea during the polar summer of 2007. Polar Biol 33, 1651–1660 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00300-010-0792-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00300-010-0792-1

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