Antarctic deep-sea meiofauna and bacteria react to the deposition of particulate organic matter after a phytoplankton bloom

Assessing benthic oxygen fluxes in oligotrophic deep sea sediments (HAUSGARTEN observatory)

“…Graf, 1989;Gooday and Turley, 1990;Smith et al, 2008), promoting a highly variable oxygen uptake between À0.1 and À 10 mmol m À 2 d À 1 (Glud (2008) and references therein). Polar deep-sea sediments represent the mid-lower end, with oxygen consumption rates on the order of À 1 mmol m À 2 d À 1 or lower (Sauter et al, 2001;Veit-Köhler et al, 2011). While deep sea sediments (4 1000 m) make up the majority of the seafloor surface (Gage and Tyler, 1991), their role in regulating the global carbon cycle is still not clear (Smith et al, 2008(Smith et al, , 2013.…”

Are boundary conditions in surface productivity at the Southern Polar Front reflected in benthic activity?

“…For example, VeitKöhler et al (2011) investigated sediment from the SYSTCO I expedition with RV Polarstern in 2008/2009 at a station in the SPF at 521S 01E and 2960 m depth during and after a phytoplankton bloom. These authors observed "significantly higher relative meiofaunal densities at the sediment surface after the remains of the phytoplankton bloom reached the seafloor" and concluded that …" higher oxygen consumption after the phytoplankton bloom may have resulted from an enhanced respiratory activity of the living benthic component" (Veit-Köhler et al, 2011: 1983. In their study also Nematoda were by far the most abundant meiofaunal taxon followed by Copepoda in importance.…”

“…The first SYSTCO I expedition on board of (Brandt and Ebbe, 2011). During this expedition, a reaction of southern ocean deep-sea bacteria and meiofauna to the deposition of particulate organic matter could be observed after a phytoplankton bloom (Veit-Köhler et al, 2011). For the seamount Maud Rise it could be demonstrated that "downward transport of the organic matter produced in the pelagic realm may be more constant than elsewhere due to low lateral drift over the seamount" (Brandt et al, : 1962 and that the biological prosperity can be related to both oceanographic and sea-ice processes in this area.…”

The Southern Ocean deep sea—A benthic view to pelagic processes

“…As expected, sediment oxygen consumption measurements revealed higher values after the bloom. The examination of the response of bacteria and metazoan meiofauna indicates that enhanced oxygen consumption is related to respiratory activity of the living benthic component (Veit-Köhler et al, 2011). Concordantly, a higher relative nematode abundance in the top centimetre layer of sediment only after the phytodetritus had settled suggests an early stage of a meiofaunal response.…”