Et. Buitenhuis et al., Blooms of Emiliania huxleyi are sinks of atmospheric carbon dioxide: A field and mesocosm study derived simulation, GLOBAL BIOG, 15(3), 2001, pp. 577-587
During field measurements in a bloom of Emiliania huxleyi in the North Sea
in 1993, an apparently inconsistent combination of observations was measure
d: (1) fCO(2), was lower in the center of the bloom than in the surrounding
nonbloom areas and undersaturated with respect to the atmosphere in both c
ases, (2) within the bloom, enhanced sedimentation of coccoliths-containing
fecal pellets was observed, (3) a large atmospheric sink of 1.3 mol C m(-2
) was derived, and (4) in the same bloom a positive correlation between CaC
O3 and fCO(2) was observed, which was interpreted as an increase of fCO(2)
during production of CaCO3. In order to resolve the inconsistency between o
bservations (1, 2, 3) and 4 a one-dimensional three-layer model was constru
cted. A positive correlation between CaCO3 and fCO(2) as obtained when the
model was parameterized with data obtained from field and mesocosm studies.
The correlation is a feature of the decay phase of a bloom and represents
a decrease of fCO(2) with a decrease of CaCO3. Thus it represents the disso
lution and sedimentation of CaCO3 rather than its production. Having resolv
ed the ambiguity within the field data by adding the dimension of time in t
he model, blooms of E. huxleyi can be identified as sinks for atmospheric c
arbon dioxide. This sink is a function of the calcification to photosynthes
is (C:P) ratio of the nitrate-using phytoplankton and is maximal when the C
:P ratio is 0.42 (that is, E. huxleyi constitutes 97% of the nitrate-using
phytoplankton). Rather than using the model for making accurate predictions
about the magnitude of this sink, a sensitivity analysis was performed to
give a range of magnitudes for the range of parameter values that were obta
ined during previous studies. Furthermore, gaps were identified in the curr
ent knowledge of carbon fluxes within blooms of E. huxleyi.