Abstract
This paper describes a carbon budget for the spring phytoplankton bloom in Auke Bay, a subarctic bay in southeastern Alaska. The budget was constructed using semiweekly data on carbon production, particulate carbon in the water column, and cumulative sedimentation of carbon, chlorophyll a, and pheopigments. From these measured parameters, seasonal carbon consumption, utilization, and import/export terms were derived. The chlorophyll and pheopigment data were used to partition carbon sinking out of the photic zone between phytoplankton cells and fecal material. The difference between total carbon production and carbon available for consumption was attributed primarily to carbon import/export related to advection of water masses into and out of the bay. Separate budgets were developed for each of five sampling years (1985–1989). An average of 130±16 g C/m2 were produced by phytoplankton during each spring. Our model suggests that an average of 70% of this carbon was available for consumption by grazers within the bay; the remaining 30% is assumed to have been exported from the bay by advective transport. Of the available (non-exported) carbon, an average of 55% was consumed by grazers, 34% sank out of the photic zone in the form of uneaten algae, and about 11% remained at the end of the sampling period in the form of phytoplankton standing stocks. Overall, about 27% of the carbon produced each spring in Auke Bay (≈35 gC/m2) was used for growth and respiration by first-order consumers within the bay.
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Communicated by M. G. Hadfield, Honolulu
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Ziemann, D.A., Bienfang, P.K., Fulton-Bennett, K.W. et al. Carbon budget for the spring bloom in Auke Bay, Alaska. Marine Biology 115, 509–521 (1993). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00349850
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00349850