Abstract
N2 fixation rates (NFR, in terms of N) in the northern South China Sea (nSCS) and the East China Sea (ECS) were measured using the acetylene reduction assay in summer and winter, 2009. NFR of the surface water ranged from 1.14 nmol/(L·d) to 10.40 nmol/(L·d) (average at (4.89±3.46) nmol/(L·d), n=11) in summer and 0.74 nmol/(L·d) to 29.45 nmol/(L·d) (average at (7.81±8.50) nmol/(L·d), n=15) in winter. Significant spatio-temporal heterogeneity emerged in our study: the anticyclonic eddies (AE) (P<0.01) and the Kuroshio Current (KC) (P<0.05) performed significantly higher NFR than that in the cyclonic eddies or no-eddy area (CEONE), indicating NFR was profoundly influenced by the physical process of the Kuroshio and mesoscale eddies. The depth-integrated N2 fixation rates (INF, in terms of N) ranged from 52.4 µmol/(m2·d) to 905.2 µmol/(m2·d) (average at (428.9±305.5) µmol/(m2·d), n=15) in the winter. The contribution of surface NFR to primary production (PP) ranged from 1.7% to 18.5% in the summer, and the mean contribution of INF to new primary production (NPP) in the nSCS and ECS were estimated to be 11.0% and 36.7% in the winter. The contribution of INF to NPP (3.0%–93.9%) also decreased from oligotrophic sea toward the eutrophic waters affected by runoffs or the CEONE. Furthermore, we observed higher contributions compared to previous studies, revealing the vital roles of nitrogen fixation in sustaining the carbon pump of the nSCS and ECS.
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Acknowledgements
We greatly acknowledge the help on GC operation by Qingyun Nan and Qing He, Minhan Dai from Xiamen University for providing nutrient data, Jianyu Hu from Xiamen University for providing temperature and salinity data, and Tiegang Li from Institute of Oceanology of Chinese Academy of Sciences for sharing the GC. We gratefully acknowledge the crew of the R/V Dongfanghong II for their assistance, all the participants for their input and contributions at sea, and the use of merged satellite datasets from Copernicus Marine Environment Monitoring Service database.
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Foundation item: The National Natural Science Foundation of China under contract Nos 41876134 and 41406155; the University Innovation Team Training Program for Tianjin under contract No. TD12-5003; the Tianjin 131 Innovation Team Program under contract No. 20180314; the Changjiang Scholar Program of Chinese Ministry of Education to Jun Sun under contract No. T2014253; the Tianjin Municipal Education Commission Research Program under contract No. 2017KJ012; the Open Fund of Tianjin Key Laboratory of Marine Resources and Chemistry under contract Nos 201506 and 201801.
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Li, L., Wu, C., Sun, J. et al. Nitrogen fixation driven by mesoscale eddies and the Kuroshio Current in the northern South China Sea and the East China Sea. Acta Oceanol. Sin. 39, 30–41 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13131-020-1691-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13131-020-1691-0