Latitudinal distribution of Trichodesmium spp. and N 2 fixation in the Atlantic Ocean
By A. Fernández, B. Mouriño‐Carballido, A. Bode, M. Varela, Emilio Marañón. 2010
87 citations recorded by the source corpus.
Abstract. We have determined the latitudinal distribution of Trichodesmium spp. abundance and community N2 fixation in the Atlantic Ocean along a meridional transect from ca. 30° N to 30° S in November–December 2007 and April–May 2008. The observations from both cruises were highly consistent in terms of absolute magnitude and latitudinal distribution, showing a strong association between Trichodesmium abundance and community N2 fixation. The highest Trichodesmium abundances (mean = 220 trichomes L−1,) and community N2 fixation rates (mean = 60 μmol m−2 d−1) occurred in the Equatorial region between 5° S–15° N. In the South Atlantic gyre, Trichodesmium abundance was very low (ca. 1 trichome L−1) but N2 fixation was always measurable, averaging 3 and 10 μmol m2 d−1 in 2007 and 2008, respectively. We suggest that N2 fixation in the South Atlantic was sustained by other, presumably unicellular, diazotrophs. Comparing these distributions with the geographical pattern in atmospheric dust deposition points to iron supply as the main factor determining the large scale latitudinal variability of Trichodesmium spp. abundance and N2 fixation in the Atlantic Ocean. We observed a marked South to North decrease in surface phosphate concentration, which argues against a role for phosphorus availability in controlling the large scale distribution of N2 fixation. Scaling up from all our measurements (42 stations) results in conservative estimates for total N2 fixation of ∼6 TgN yr−1 in the North Atlantic (0–40° N) and ~1.2 TgN yr−1 in the South Atlantic (0–40° S).
Subfields: Ecology, Oceanography
View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/81dc8e5c6ed074d234db20499ffedda5b64d394b
How researchers see this paper
The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.
In Ecology
In Oceanography
Citations in the corpus
- Dust- and mineral-iron utilization by the marine dinitrogen-fixer Trichodesmium (2011, background): “Indeed, dust inputs to the surface ocean have been correlated with Trichodesmium abundance and elevated N 2 fixation rate”