Abstract
Trace concentrations of labile dissolved organic phosphorus (LDOP) in oligotrophic seawater were measured by use of an enzymatic procedure and a nanomolar phosphate analytical system consisting of a gas-segmented continuous flow analyzer with a liquid waveguide capillary cell. LDOP, defined as DOP hydrolyzed by alkaline phosphatase (AP) from Escherichia coli, was quantified as the difference between the phosphate concentrations of the seawater sample with and without AP treatment. For sensitive measurement of LDOP, we found that phosphate contamination derived from commercially available AP must be corrected, and azide treatment before AP treatment proved effective in removing biological effect that occurs during DOP hydrolysis. Field observations at six stations of the western North Pacific and the East China Sea during the boreal summer revealed that, in the upper 200 m of the water column, LDOP concentrations ranged from the detection limit (3 nM) to 243 nM, and phosphate concentrations ranged from 5 to 374 nM. The spatial distribution patterns of LDOP were similar to those of phosphate. Most of the depth profiles for LDOP and phosphate showed concentrations were extremely low, <25 nM, between the surface and the deep chlorophyll maximum layer (DCML) and increased below the DCML. Strongly depleted LDOP and phosphate above the DCML suggest that LDOP is actively hydrolyzed under phosphate-depleted conditions and utilized by microbes.
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Acknowledgments
We are grateful to the officers, crew members, and members of the scientific party of the R/V Tansei-maru cruises for their cooperation at sea. We particularly acknowledge H Ogawa and K Furuya for organizing the cruises KT-10-13 and KT-10-19, respectively. This work was financially supported by Grant-in-Aid No. 22710006 for Young Scientists (B) from the Japan Society for Promotion of Science, and Grant-in-Aid No. 18067007 for Scientific Research in Priority Areas (Western Pacific Air-Sea Interaction Study “W-PASS”) and Grant-in-Aid No. 24121003 for Scientific Research in Innovative Areas (New Ocean Paradigm on Its Biogeochemistry, Ecosystem and Sustainable Use “NEOPS”) from the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, Japan.
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Hashihama, F., Kinouchi, S., Suwa, S. et al. Sensitive determination of enzymatically labile dissolved organic phosphorus and its vertical profiles in the oligotrophic western North Pacific and East China Sea. J Oceanogr 69, 357–367 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10872-013-0178-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10872-013-0178-4