Food for all? Wildfire ash fuels growth of diverse eukaryotic plankton

Abstract

In December 2017, one of the largest wildfires in California history, the Thomas Fire, created a large smoke and ash plume that extended over the northeastern Pacific Ocean. Here, we explore the impact of Thomas Fire ash deposition on seawater chemistry and the growth and composition of natural microbial communities. Experiments conducted in coastal California waters during the Thomas Fire revealed that leaching of ash in seawater resulted in significant additions of dissolved nutrients including inorganic nitrogen (nitrate, nitrite and ammonium), silicic acid, metals (iron, nickel, cobalt and copper), organic nitrogen and organic carbon. After exposure to ash leachate at high (0.25 g ash l −1 ) and low (0.08 g ash l −1 ) concentrations for 4 days, natural microbial communities had 59–154% higher particulate organic carbon concentrations than communities without ash leachate additions. Additionally, a diverse assemblage of eukaryotic microbes (protists) responded to the ash leachate with taxa from 11 different taxonomic divisions increasing in relative abundance compared with control treatments. Our results suggest that large fire events can be important atmospheric sources of nutrients (particularly nitrogen) to coastal marine systems, where, through leaching of various nutrients, ash may act as a ‘food for all’ in protist communities.

Review period

“…A similar increase in East Siberian Sea productivity (by over 200%) was attributed to direct nutrient (nitrogen) deposition and black carbon-induced fast-ice melting from increased fires on the Eurasian continent in 2019-2020 (Seok et al, 2024). Coastal community shifts were observed in the Santa Barbara Channel (California, USA) during the 2017 record-breaking Thomas fires (Kramer et al, 2020;Ladd et al, 2023). In the Southern Hemisphere, the unprecedented Black Summer fires which occurred in southeastern Australia in 2019/2020 fueled a continent-sized phytoplankton bloom in the iron-depleted southern Pacific Ocean (Tang et al, 2021).…”

Comment on essd-2024-218

“…A similar increase in East Siberian Sea productivity (by over 200%) was attributed to direct nutrient (nitrogen) deposition and black carbon-induced fast-ice melting from increased fires on the Eurasian continent in 2019-2020 (Seok et al, 2024). Coastal community shifts were observed in the Santa Barbara Channel (California, USA) during the 2017 record-breaking Thomas fires (Kramer et al, 2020;Ladd et al, 2023). In the Southern Hemisphere, the unprecedented Black Summer fires which occurred in southeastern Australia in 2019/2020 fueled a continent-sized phytoplankton bloom in the iron-depleted southern Pacific Ocean (Tang et al, 2021).…”