Open Ocean Particle Flux Variability From Surface to Seafloor

Abstract

Ocean biogeochemical cycles have much to do with vertical transport of carbon and other elements via particle sinking and other processes (Boyd et al., 2019). Net primary production (NPP) by phytoplankton largely controls how much carbon is available to the rest of the ecosystem (Osmond, 1989); most of this sustains the heterotrophic communities living in the euphotic zone, but a fraction is transported to deeper depths. This fraction is comparably small in the context of the carbon cycle (Muller-Karger et al., 2005) but results in a vertical flux that redistributes carbon and other elements from the surface all the way to the seafloor, connecting the ocean as a global ecosystem while also storing thousands of petagrams of carbon in deep waters for climatically relevant timescales (Ito & Follows, 2005). Quantitative understanding of this flux remains limited, however, not only because measurements of sinking particle flux are challenging and

How Are Under Ice Phytoplankton Related to Sea Ice in the Southern Ocean?

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Apparent biogeographical trends in Alexandrium blooms for northern Europe: identifying links to climate change and effective adaptive actions

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Global Trends in the Distribution of Biogenic Minerals in the Ocean

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