High uptake of sympagic organic matter by benthos on an Arctic outflow shelf.

Autor: Cautain IJ; Scottish Association for Marine Science, Oban, Scotland., Last KS; Scottish Association for Marine Science, Oban, Scotland., Bluhm BA; Department of Arctic and Marine Biology, UiT-The Arctic University of Norway, Tromsø, Norway., Renaud PE; Akvaplan-niva, Tromsø, Norway.; Arctic Biology Department, University Centre in Svalbard, Longyearbyen, Norway., McKee D; Department of Arctic and Marine Biology, UiT-The Arctic University of Norway, Tromsø, Norway.; Physics Department, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, Scotland., Narayanaswamy BE; Scottish Association for Marine Science, Oban, Scotland.
Jazyk: angličtina
Zdroj: PloS one [PLoS One] 2024 Aug 07; Vol. 19 (8), pp. e0308562. Date of Electronic Publication: 2024 Aug 07 (Print Publication: 2024).
DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0308562
Abstrakt: On Arctic shelves, benthic food-webs are tightly linked to overlying primary production. In the seasonal ice zone, sympagic (ice-associated) primary production can be a major source of carbon for the benthos on productive inflow shelves. However, the role of sympagic organic matter is less well-understood in food webs of heavily ice-covered, less- productive outflow shelves, such as the northeast Greenland shelf. Highly branched isoprenoid biomarkers (HBIs) were used to track the relative distribution of sympagic and pelagic organic matter in the water column, sediments, and benthic fauna of the northeast Greenland shelf and fjords. Low pelagic HBI presence throughout the study area indicated a generally low production by pelagic diatoms (at the time of sampling). This was reflected in the benthos, as ~90% of their assimilated carbon was estimated to come from sympagic sources, indicating a benthic food-web highly reliant on sympagic production. This reliance was higher in coastal areas than on the open shelf, where the potentially higher pelagic productivity and shallower water on banks likely increased contributions of pelagic organic matter. As declining ice cover and reduced production of fast-sinking ice algae projected for Arctic shelves will likely result in weaker coupling between ice algae and the benthos, with possible consequences for future benthic-community structure and function.
Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.
(Copyright: © 2024 Cautain et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.)
Databáze: MEDLINE
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