Funded Research - Project Profile: Jenkins-01
Project Title: Diatoms, Food Webs and Carbon Export - Leveraging NASA EXPORTS to Test the Role of Diatom Physiology in the Biological Carbon Pump
Project Lead: Bethany Jenkins, The University of Rhode Island
NRA: OCE 1756816
Abstract:
The proposed research focuses on the fate of the carbon associated with a major group of phytoplankton, the diatoms. The major objective is to understand how diatom community composition and the prevailing nutrient conditions create taxonomic differences in metabolic state that combine to direct diatom taxa to different carbon export pathways. The focus is on diatoms, given their large contribution to global marine primary productivity and carbon export which translates into a significant contribution to the biogeochemical cycling of carbon (C), nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P), iron (Fe) and silicon (Si). It is hypothesized that the type and degree of diatom physiological stress are vital aspects of ecosystem state that drive export. To test this hypothesis, combined investigator expertise in phytoplankton physiology, genomics and trace element chemistry will be used to assess the rates of nutrient use and the genetic composition and response of diatom communities, with measurements of silicon and iron stress to evaluate stress as a predictor of the path of diatom carbon export.
The first EXPORTS field campagin is focused in the subarctic North Pacific, an ecosystem characterized as high nutrient low chlorophyll (HNLC) due to low iron (Fe) levels that are primary controllers constraining phytoplankton utilization of other nutrients. It has been a paradigm in low Fe, HNLC systems that diatoms grow at elevated Si:C and Si:N ratios and should be efficiently exported as particles significantly enriched in Si relative to C. However, Fe limitation also alters diatoms species composition and the high Si demand imposed by low Fe can drive HNLC regions to Si limitation or Si/Fe co-limitation. Thus, the degree of Si and/or Fe stress in HNLC waters can all alter diatom taxonomic composition, the elemental composition of diatom cells, and the path cells follow through the food web ultimately altering diatom carbon export.
Within each ecosystem state examined in the EXPORTS program, nutrient biogeochemistry, diatom and phytoplankton community structure, and global diatom gene expression patterns (metatranscriptomics) will be characterized in the lit ocean. Nutrient amendment experiments with tracer addition (14C,15N, 32Si) will be used to quantify the level of Si, N and Fe stress being experienced by the phytoplankton and to contextualize taxa-specific metatranscriptome responses for resolving gene expression profiles in the in situ communities.
Keywords: diatoms, phytoplankton, nutrient uptake rates, metatranscriptomes, silciate, iron
Project Lead(s):
Bethany Jenkins, University of Rhode Island
Co-Investigator(s):
Kirsten Buck, University of South Florida
Mark Brzezinski, University of California Santa Barbara
Post-Doc(s):
Salvatore Caprara, University of South Florida
Sarah Lerch, University of Rhode Island
Student-Graduate(s):
Kristofer Gomes, University of Rhode Island
Travis Mellett, University of South Florida
Student-Undergraduate(s):
None
Collaborator(s):
None
Staff:
Janice Jones, University of California Santa Barbara