CHANGES IN THE FATTY ACID COMPOSITION O F SINKING PARTICLES DURING A PHYTOPLANKTON BLOOM IN THE AUSTRAL

• Main Authors: Summer In, Breid Bay, Kazuhide Hayakawa, Nobuhiko Handa, Mitsuo Fukuchi
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Subjects: Austral; Breid Bay; Antarc*; Antarctica
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.489.2437; http://polaris.nipr.ac.jp/~penguin/polarbiosci/issues/pdf/1997-Hayakawa.pdf

Abstract: Vertical fluxes of fatty acids were measured in sinking particles collected using a time-series sediment trap in Breid Bay, Antarctica during the austral summer from December 1985 to February 1986. Major components of fatty acids indicated that the sinking organic matter was mainly derived from diatoms and the contribution of zooplankton to the sinking particles was small. Temporal variation in fatty acid fluxes indicated changes in the abundance and the growth activity of diatom communities in overlying waters during the observations. Ratios of unsaturated fatty acids to saturated fatty acids in the sinking particles increased in the exponential growth phase of the overlying diatom bloom as inferred from changes in the organic carbon and Chl a content of sinking particles which reached their peak and started decreasing thereafter. Relative abundance of 20:s in total fatty acids increased in the peak fluxes of the sinking particles. Our results suggest that the increase of sinking fluxes during the observations was due to the accumulation of the diatom population, of which growth was induced by some favorable environmental conditions in the surface water. 1.