4.7 Article

Field Observations and Physical-Biogeochemical Modeling Suggest Low Silicon Affinity for Antarctic Fast Ice Diatoms

Journal

JOURNAL OF GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH-OCEANS
Volume 124, Issue 11, Pages 7837-7853

Publisher

AMER GEOPHYSICAL UNION
DOI: 10.1029/2018JC014458

Keywords

-

Categories

Funding

  1. Australian Government Cooperative Research Centres Programme through the Antarctic Climate & Ecosystems (ACECRC) Carbon program 2.1
  2. Australian Antarctic Science (AAS) [4291]
  3. Australian Research Council's Special Research Initiative for Antarctic Gateway Partnership [SR140300001]
  4. Rainforest, Reef, and Cultural Ecology, School for International Training (SIT) Study Abroad program

Ask authors/readers for more resources

We use field observations from late spring and a one-dimensional sea-ice model to explore a high nutrient, high chlorophyll system in Antarctic land-fast ice. Lack of variability in chlorophyll a concentration and organic carbon content over the 17-day sampling period suggests a balance between macronutrient sources and biological uptake. Nitrate, nitrite, phosphate, and ammonium were measured at concentrations well above salinity-predicted levels, indicating nutrient accumulation fueled by remineralization processes. However, silicic acid (DSi) was depleted relative to seawater and was potentially limiting. One-dimensional physical-biogeochemical sea-ice model simulations at the observation site achieve extremely high algal growth and DSi uptake with a DSi half-saturation constant used for pelagic diatoms (K-Si = 3.9 mu M) and are not sufficiently improved by tuning the DSi:carbon ratio or DSi remineralization rate. In contrast, diatom biomass in the bottom ice, which makes up 70% of the observed chlorophyll, is simulated using K-Si an order of magnitude higher (50 mu M), a value similar to that measured in a few Antarctic diatom cultures. Some sea-ice diatoms may therefore experience limitation at relatively high ambient DSi concentrations compared to pelagic diatoms. Our study highlights the urgent need for observational data on sea-ice algal affinity for DSi to further support this hypothesis. A lower algal growth rate increases model predictions of DSi in the upper sea ice to more accurate concentrations. The model currently does not account for the non-diatom communities that dominate those layers, and thus, modeling diatom communities overpredicts DSi uptake in the upper ice.

Authors

I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.

Reviews

Primary Rating

4.7
Not enough ratings

Secondary Ratings

Novelty
-
Significance
-
Scientific rigor
-
Rate this paper

Recommended

No Data Available
No Data Available