Zooplankton successional patterns and response times were characterized in a tropical estuary following a major storm-runoff event to evaluate the effects of a nutrient perturbation on community composition and dynamics. Intensive water-column monitoring in southern Kaneohe Bay, Hawaii, showed that dissolved macronutrients -NO 3 -+ NO 2 -, SRP (soluble reactive phosphorus) and Si(OH) 4 -increased significantly immediately following the initial runoff event. Bottom-up effects were evident in both phytoplankton and zooplankton communities. An initial phytoplankton bloom was dominated by small cells and lasted only a few days, while post-bloom pigment concentrations showed a more gradual increase in total chlorophyll a and a shift to a diatom-dominated community. The initial bloom had an unexpectedly large influence on zooplankton growth and reproduction on extremely short time scales. Appendicularians exhibited the most dramatic response, with biomass increasing 6-fold in 1 d, and abundances reaching values only rarely observed in these waters. Response covaried with organism size, with larger components of the community, especially calanoid copepods and gelatinous zooplankton, increasing as new resources became available. Post-bloom changes in zooplankton and phytoplankton community structure also suggest significant top-down controls on phytoplankton and zooplankton community biomass and structure, with increased predation on appendicularians and copepods resulting in partial release of grazing pressure on small and large cells, respectively. Nutrient-rich runoff can have significant and surprisingly rapid impacts on zooplankton population dynamics in tropical coastal waters via direct, pulsed, food influences on the growth and reproduction of omnivorous organisms and the indirect stimulation of secondary consumers.
[1] During ODP Leg 168, two of ten boreholes, ODP Holes 1025C and 1026B, were cased through the sediment section, penetrated basaltic crust that is overpressured, and sealed. In 1999 and 2000 the seals were removed, allowing crustal formation fluids to vent and be sampled. The composition of these fluids is compared to those of basal deep-sea pore waters, which have been the basis for estimating geochemical fluxes from low-temperature ridge flank hydrothermal systems. Estimates for the composition of the major ions in formation fluids based on basal pore waters are within 5% of the values measured in borehole fluids. Similar comparisons for minor and trace elements are not as good; some are reactive in the sediment section, resulting in large uncertainties in the pore water extrapolation, while others are influenced by a variety of contaminants, including steel, grease, drilling muds, and basal sediment. Evidence for contamination includes high dissolved and particulate concentrations of several metals (e.g., Fe, Cu, Co, Zn, and Pb) and measurable changes in concentration during the past four years in response to reaction with basal sediment. This new confidence in estimating the primary composition of formation fluids, coupled with advances in thermodynamic and kinetic models, reveals the possibility of anhydrite precipitation in ridge flank hydrothermal systems at temperatures of $70°C. Such new insights allow us to address the timing and conditions under which seawater-crustal reactions occur, leading to more accurate models of crustal evolution.
While the physical forcing mechanisms that govern the outflows of major rivers throughout the world are well documented in the literature, comparably less research has been done to examine the mechanisms that govern the contributions of small rivers and streams to coastal ocean systems. These rivers and streams provide a direct means for the transport of anthropogenic and terrigenous materials from watersheds to coastal oceans. This study describes the temporal and spatial variability of freshwater plumes from Kaneohe Stream, Hawaii, USA, after storm events in the Kaneohe Bay watershed. Freshwater plumes were examined using a combination of fixed moorings, synoptic shipboard surveys, and lagrangian surface drifters. Data sets were collected over the course of 19 months from August 2005 to March 2007 with particular attention paid to storms during the boreal winters. Stream discharge and duration were found to exert a primary control on plume persistence in the southern Kaneohe Bay system. Time series data show a strong coherence between wind forcing and surface currents, which, in combination with data derived from shipboard and aerial surveys, indicate that the spatial variability of freshwater plumes is primarily determined by atmospheric forcing.
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