Changes in the complexity of planktonic food webs may be expected in future aquatic systems due to increases in sea surface temperature and an enhanced stratification of the water column. Under these conditions, the growth of unpalatable, filamentous, N2‐fixing cyanobacterial blooms, and their effect on planktonic food webs will become increasingly important. The planktonic food web structure in aquatic ecosystems at times of filamentous cyanobacterial blooms is currently unresolved, with discordant lines of evidence suggesting that herbivores dominate the mesozooplankton or that mesozooplankton organisms are mainly carnivorous. Here, we use a set of proxies derived from amino acid nitrogen stable isotopes from two mesozooplankton size fractions to identify changes in the nitrogen source and the planktonic food web structure across different microplankton communities. A transition from herbivory to carnivory in mesozooplankton between more eutrophic, near‐coastal sites and more oligotrophic, offshore sites was accompanied by an increasing diversity of microplankton communities with aging filamentous cyanobacterial blooms. Our analyses of 124 biotic and abiotic variables using multivariate statistics confirmed salinity as a major driver for the biomass distribution of non‐N2‐fixing microplankton species such as dinoflagellates. However, we provide strong evidence that stratification, N2 fixation, and the stage of the cyanobacterial blooms regulated much of the microplankton diversity and the mean trophic position and size of the metabolic nitrogen pool in mesozooplankton. Our empirical, macroscale data set consistently unifies contrasting results of the dominant feeding mode in mesozooplankton during blooms of unpalatable, filamentous, N2‐fixing cyanobacteria by identifying the at times important role of heterotrophic microbial food webs. Thus, carnivory, rather than herbivory, dominates in mesozooplankton during aging and decaying cyanobacterial blooms with hitherto uncharacterized consequences for the biogeochemical functions of mesozooplankton.

Respiration is a key process in the cycling of particulate matter and, therefore, an important control mechanism of carbon export to the ocean's interior. Most of the fixed carbon is lost in the upper ocean, and only a minor amount of organic material sustains life in the deep-sea. Conditions are particularly extreme in hadal trenches, and yet they host active biological communities. The source of organic carbon that supports them and the contribution of these communities to the ocean carbon cycle, however, remain uncertain. Here we report on size-fractionated depth profiles of plankton respiration assessed from the activity of the electron transport system in the Atacama Trench region, and provide estimates of the minimum carbon flux (FC) needed to sustain the respiratory requirements from the ocean surface to hadal waters of the trench and shallower nearby sites. Plankton < 100 μm contributed about 90% to total community respiration, whose magnitude was highly correlated with surface productivity. Remineralization rates were highest in the euphotic zone and declined sharply within intermediate oxygen-depleted waters, remaining fairly constant toward the bottom. Integrated respiration in ultra-deep waters (> 1000 m) was comparable to that found in upper layers, with 1.3 AE 0.4 mmol C m À2 d À1 being respired in the hadopelagic. The comparison between our FC models and estimates of sinking particle flux revealed a carbon imbalance through the mesopelagic that was paradoxically reduced at greater depths. We argue that large fast-sinking particles originated in the overlying surface ocean may effectively sustain the respiratory carbon demands in this ultra-deep marine environment.

Abstract. Oceanic depth profiles of plankton respiration are described by a power function, R CO 2 = (R CO 2 ) 0 (z/z 0 ) b , similar to the vertical carbon flux profile. Furthermore, because both ocean processes are closely related, conceptually and mathematically, each can be calculated from the other. The exponent b, always negative, defines the maximum curvature of the respiration-depth profile and controls the carbon flux. When |b| is large, the carbon flux (F C ) from the epipelagic ocean is low and the nutrient retention efficiency (NRE) is high, allowing these waters to maintain high productivity. The opposite occurs when |b| is small. This means that the attenuation of respiration in ocean water columns is critical in understanding and predicting both vertical F C as well as the capacity of epipelagic ecosystems to retain their nutrients. The ratio of seawater R CO 2 to incoming F C is the NRE, a new metric that represents nutrient regeneration in a seawater layer in reference to the nutrients introduced into that layer via F C . A depth profile of F C is the integral of water column respiration. This relationship facilitates calculating ocean sections of F C from water column respiration. In an F C section and in a NRE section across the Peruvian upwelling system we found an F C maximum and a NRE minimum extending down to 400 m, 50 km off the Peruvian coast over the upper part of the continental slope. Finally, considering the coupling between respiratory electron transport system activity and heterotrophic oxidative phosphorylation promoted the calculation of an ocean section of heterotrophic energy production (HEP). It ranged from 250 to 500 J d −1 m −3 in the euphotic zone to less than 5 J d −1 m −3 below 200 m on this ocean section.

The distribution of zooplankton biomass and potential metabolic rates, in terms of electron transport system (ETS) and glutamate dehydrogenase (GDH), were analyzed along a cross-shelf transect in waters off Namibia. The highly variable dynamics of upwelling filaments promoted short-term fluctuations in the zooplankton biomass and metabolism. Maximum values were characteristically found over the shelf-break, where zooplankton biomass as dry mass (DM) reached peaks of 64.5 mg m −3 within the upper 200 m in late August. Two weeks later, the zooplankton-DM decreased by more than a third (19 mg DM m −3). Zooplankton potential respiration and NH 4 + excretion averaged 234 μmol O 2 m −3 d −1 and 169 μmol NH 4 + m −3 d −1 in the Namibian shelf, respectively. High protein-specific ETS activities even in the low-chlorophyll waters outside the filament suggested a shift into greater omnivory seaward. In this light, zooplankton elemental and isotopic compositions were used to investigate the pelagic food web interactions. They evidenced spatial changes in the carbon resource for zooplankton as well as changes in the form of nitrogen that fueled the biological production in aging advected waters. Overall, both aspects of zooplankton metabolism impacted the primary productivity at a level less than 10% under all the different oceanographic conditions.