DISTRIBUTION OF PARTICULATE MATTER WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO BIOGENIC SILICA OF SURFACE WATERS IN THE BERING SEA GYRE IN SUMMER 1991 (15th Symposium on Polar Biology)

• Main Authors: シオモト アキヒロ, オグラ ミキ, Akihiro SHIOMOTO, Miki OGURA
• Format: Report
• Language: English
• Published: Proceeding 1994
• Subjects: Antarctic; Antarctic Ocean; Bering Sea; The Antarctic; Antarc*; Polar Biology; Proceedings of the NIPR Symposium on Polar Biology; Aleutian Islands
• Online Access: https://nipr.repo.nii.ac.jp/?action=repository_uri&item_id=5213; http://id.nii.ac.jp/1291/00005213/; https://nipr.repo.nii.ac.jp/?action=repository_action_common_download&item_id=5213&item_no=1&attribute_id=18&file_no=1

Biogenic silica (BSi), lithogenic silica (LSi), participate organic carbon (POC) and nitrogen (PON), and chlorophyll a (Chl. a) of surface waters were measured in the Bering Sea Gyre in summer. Twenty one stations were divided into three water types according to salinity and LSi distributions: the waters of the eastern Bering Sea Shelf (Type I), the waters around the Aleutian Islands (Type II), and other water types (Type III). The mean concentrations of particulate matter were largest in Type II and smallest in Type I. The concentration of BSi in Type II was 22 times larger than that in Type I, and those of other components were several times larger in the former water type than in the latter type. The mean value of BSi/POC ratio was 0.02 in Type I, 0.28 in Type II and 0.15 in Type III, although the POC/PON ratios were nearly constant among water types (mean±SD=6.8±1.6). Furthermore, the mean value of BSi/POC ratio in Type II was twice as high as the typical Si (cellular silicon)/C (cellular carbon) ratio of diatoms (0.13) and was nearly equal to high values (0.30-0.65) in the Antarctic Ocean, possibly reflecting the high silicate demand of diatoms. These results show that BSi characterizes the distribution pattern of particulate organic matter, in particular, the diatoms, in surface waters of the polar seas.