What causes the inverse relationship between primary production and export efficiency in the Southern Ocean?

• Published in: Geophysical Research Letters
• Main Authors: Le Moigne, Frédéric A.C., Henson, Stephanie, Cavan, Emma, Georges, Clément, Pabortsava, Katsiaryna, Achterberg, Eric, Ceballos-Romero, Elena, Zubkov, Mike, Sanders, Richard
• Other Authors: National Oceanography Centre Southampton (NOC), University of Southampton, Laboratoire d’Océanologie et de Géosciences (LOG) - UMR 8187 (LOG), Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Université du Littoral Côte d'Opale (ULCO)-Université de Lille-Institut national des sciences de l'Univers (INSU - CNRS), Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel (GEOMAR)
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: HAL CCSD 2016
• Subjects: [SDU.OCEAN]Sciences of the Universe [physics]/Ocean; Atmosphere; Southern Ocean
• Online Access: https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-02345498; https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-02345498/document; https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-02345498/file/2016GL068480.pdf; https://doi.org/10.1002/2016GL068480

International audience The ocean contributes to regulating atmospheric CO 2 levels, partly via variability in the fraction of primary production (PP) which is exported out of the surface layer (i.e., the e ratio). Southern Ocean studies have found that contrary to global-scale analyses, an inverse relationship exists between e ratio and PP. This relationship remains unexplained, with potential hypotheses being (i) large export of dissolved organic carbon (DOC) in high PP areas, (ii) strong surface microbial recycling in high PP regions, and/or (iii) grazing-mediated export that varies inversely with PP. We find that the export of DOC has a limited influence in setting the negative e ratio/PP relationship. However, we observed that at sites with low PP and high e ratios, zooplankton-mediated export is large and surface microbial abundance low suggesting that both are important drivers of the magnitude of the e ratio in the Southern Ocean.