Carbon flux by seasonal vertical migrant copepods is a small number

• Published in: Journal of Plankton Research
• Main Authors: Longhurst, Alan, Williams, Robert
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: Oxford University Press 1992
• Subjects: ORIGINAL ARTICLES; North Atlantic; Copepods
• Online Access: http://plankt.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/short/14/11/1495; https://doi.org/10.1093/plankt/14.11.1495

The abundant species of Calanus that dominate the mesozooplankton of high North Atlantic latitudes overwinter at depths >500 m, when the population loses 70–80% of its biomass by predation and physiological stress. This represents an annual flux of carbon, obtained in the photic zone, into the interior of the ocean of 274.5 mg C m−2 year−1, or 0.0018 Gt C year−1 for the North Atlantic. This is a small value compared with the flux of respiratory carbon by diel migrants in warmer oceans and, when extrapolated to a global flux (0.012–0.018 Gt C year−1 over areas where winter migrations are important is also small compared with computations of the global sinking flux of particles through 200 m (1.6–3.8 Gt C year−1 or other relevant global carbon fluxes in the oceans.