Publication Date:
2022-05-26
Description:
© The Author(s), 2012. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in Frontiers in Microbiology 3 (2012): 359, doi:10.3389/fmicb.2012.00359.
Description:
This study investigated the impact of atmospheric metal deposition on natural phytoplankton communities at open-ocean and coastal sites in the Sargasso Sea during the spring bloom. Locally collected aerosols with different metal contents were added to natural phytoplankton assemblages from each site, and changes in nitrate, dissolved metal concentration, and phytoplankton abundance and carbon content were monitored. Addition of aerosol doubled the concentrations of cadmium (Cd), cobalt (Co), copper (Cu), iron (Fe), manganese (Mn), and nickel (Ni) in the incubation water. Over the 3-day experiments, greater drawdown of dissolved metals occurred in the open ocean water, whereas little metal drawdown occurred in the coastal water. Two populations of picoeukaryotic algae and Synechococcus grew in response to aerosol additions in both experiments. Particulate organic carbon increased and was most sensitive to changes in picoeukaryote abundance. Phytoplankton community composition differed depending on the chemistry of the aerosol added. Enrichment with aerosol that had higher metal content led to a 10-fold increase in Synechococcus abundance in the oceanic experiment but not in the coastal experiment. Enrichment of aerosol-derived Co, Mn, and Ni were particularly enhanced in the oceanic experiment, suggesting the Synechococcus population may have been fertilized by these aerosol metals. Cu-binding ligand concentrations were in excess of dissolved Cu in both experiments, and increased with aerosol additions. Bioavailable free hydrated Cu2+ concentrations were below toxicity thresholds throughout both experiments. These experiments show (1) atmospheric deposition contributes biologically important metals to seawater, (2) these metals are consumed over time scales commensurate with cell growth, and (3) growth responses can differ between distinct Synechococcus or eukaryotic algal populations despite their relatively close geographic proximity and taxonomic similarity.
Description:
This research was supported by NSF-OCE grant 0850467 to Adina Paytan, funds from the Steel Industry Foundation for the advancement of Environmental Protection Technology and from Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research, the Ministry of Education, Science, Sports, and Culture of Japan to Yoshiki Sohrin, and NSF-OCE grant 0752366 to Michael W. Lomas and Kristen N. Buck was supported by institutional funding from the Walwyn Hughes Fund for Innovation and the Ray Moore Endowment Fund at the Bermuda Institute of Ocean Sciences (BIOS). This material is based upon work supported in part by a National Science Foundation Postdoctoral Research Fellowship in Biology under Grant No. NSF 1103575 to Katherine R. M. Mackey.
Keywords:
Atmospheric metal deposition
;
Colimitation
;
Copper toxicity
;
Incubation
;
Nutrient addition experiment
;
Picoeukaryote
;
Prochlorococcus
;
Synechococcus
Repository Name:
Woods Hole Open Access Server
Type:
Article
Format:
application/pdf
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