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Plankton respiration in the northern South China Sea during summer and winter

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Abstract

Plankton respiration is an important part of the carbon cycle and significantly affects the balance of autotrophic assimilation and heterotrophic production in oceanic ecosystems. In the present study, respiration rates of the euphotic zone plankton community (CReu), size fractionated chlorophyll a concentration (Chl a), bacterial abundance (BAC), and dissolved oxygen concentration (DO) were investigated during winter and summer in the northern South China Sea (nSCS). The results show that there were obvious spatial and temporal variations in CReu in the nSCS (ranging from 0.03 to 1.10 µmol/(L·h)), CReu in winter ((0.53±0.27) µmol/(L·h)) was two times higher than that in summer ((0.26±0.20) µmol/(L·h)), and decreased gradually from the coastal zone to the open sea. The distribution of CReu was affected by coupled physical-chemical-biological processes, driven by monsoon events. The results also show that CReu was positively correlated with Chl a, BAC, and DO,and that BAC contributed the highest CReu variability. Furthermore, the results of the stepwise multiple linear regression suggest that bacteria and phytoplankton were the dominant factors in determining CReu (R2 = 0.82, p<0.05) in the nSCS. Based on this relationship, we estimated the integrated water column respiration rate (CRint) within 100 m of the investigated area, and found that the relationship between the biomass of the plankton community and respiration may be nonlinear in the water column.

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Acknowledgements

The authors thank the Environmental Monitoring Center of South China Sea Branch, State Oceanic Administration for providing temperature, DO, and nutrient data. The authors are also grateful to the officers and crew of the “China Marine Surveillance 81” cruise for their assistance.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory of Marine Ecosystem and Biogeochemistry, Second Institute of Oceanography, State Oceanic Administration, Hangzhou, 310012, China

    Xiangxi Zeng, Qiang Hao, Guangdong Zhou, Fengfeng Le & Chenggang Liu

  2. Center for Marine Ranching Engineering Science Research of Tianjin, Tianjin Bohai Sea Fisheries Research Institute, Tianjin, 300457, China

    Xiangxi Zeng

  3. State Key Laboratory of Satellite Ocean Environment Dynamics, Hangzhou, 310012, China

    Qiang Hao & Chenggang Liu

  4. Tianjin Key Laboratory of Aqua-ecology and Aquaculture, College of Fisheries, Tianjin Agricultural University, Tianjin, 300384, China

    Xiangxi Zeng & Wenli Zhou

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  1. Xiangxi Zeng
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Correspondence to Qiang Hao.

Additional information

Foundation item: The National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) under contract Nos 90711006, 41306162 and 41006101; the National Key Research and Development Program of China under contract No. 2016YFC1401601; the National Programme on Global Change and Air-Sea Interaction under contract No. GASI-0301-03-03.

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Zeng, X., Hao, Q., Zhou, G. et al. Plankton respiration in the northern South China Sea during summer and winter. Acta Oceanol. Sin. 37, 74–83 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13131-018-1213-5

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