Abstract
Temporal evolution of dissolved and biogenic silica concentrations along the Scheldt tidal river and in its tributaries was investigated during 1 year in 2003. In the tributaries, dissolved silica (DSi) concentrations remained high and biogenic silica (BSi) concentrations were low throughout the year. In the tidal river during summer, DSi was completely consumed and BSi concentrations increased. Overall, most of the BSi was associated with living diatoms during the productive period in the tidal river. Nevertheless, the detrital BSi was a significant fraction of the total BSi pool, of which less than 10% could be attributed to phytoliths. The tidal river was divided into two zones for budgeting purposes. The highest productivity was observed in the zone that received the highest water discharge, as higher riverine DSi input fluxes induced presumably a less restrictive DSi limitation, but the discharge pattern could not explain all by itself the variations in DSi consumption. Silica uptake and retention in the tidal river were important at the seasonal time-scale: from May to September, 48% of the riverine DSi was consumed and 65% of the produced BSi was deposited, leading to a silica (DSi + BSi) retention in the tidal river of 30%. However, when annual fluxes were considered, DSi uptake in the tidal river amounted to 14% of the DSi inputs and only 6% of the riverine silica (DSi + BSi) was retained in the tidal river.
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Abbreviations
- BSi:
-
Biogenic silica
- BSidet :
-
BSi not associated with living diatoms
- BSiliv :
-
BSi associated with living diatom
- DiatChla :
-
Chlorophyll a ascribed to diatoms
- DSi:
-
Dissolved silica
- POC:
-
Particulate organic carbon
- POCnld :
-
POC not corresponding to living diatoms
- SPM:
-
Suspended particulate matter
- SPMnbld :
-
SPM not corresponding to BSi nor to living diatoms
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Acknowledgments
We are very grateful to Jean-Pierre Vanderborght for constructive discussions and comments on the manuscript. Claar van der Zee and Nathalie Roevros commented on previous versions of the manuscript. We would also like to thank Nathalie Roevros, Nicolas Canu, Renaat Dasseville, Christiane de Marneffe, Michaël Tsagaris and Stijn Vanneste for their assistance in field sampling and laboratory analyses. Victor Chepurnov isolated the Cyclotella sp. strains for the phytoplankton collection of the Ghent University. Data on water discharge were provided by the Ministry of the Flemish Community (Afdeling Maritieme Toegang). We would also like to thank the three anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments and suggestions. This study was financed by the Belgian Federal Science Policy Office (BELSPO) under contract number EV/11/17A (SISCO). Additional BELSPO funding from the TIMOTHY project (Interuniversity Attraction Pole, IAP, P6/13) is acknowledged. This is also a contribution to the EU IP CarboOcean (contract no. 511176–2). We would like to dedicate this paper to the late Roland Wollast who did the pioneering work on the silica biogeochemistry in the Scheldt estuary.
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Carbonnel, V., Lionard, M., Muylaert, K. et al. Dynamics of dissolved and biogenic silica in the freshwater reaches of a macrotidal estuary (The Scheldt, Belgium). Biogeochemistry 96, 49–72 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10533-009-9344-6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10533-009-9344-6