The reliability of grazing rate estimates from dilution experiments: Have we over-estimated rates of organic carbon consumption by microzooplankton?

[摘要] According to a recent global analysis, microzooplankton grazing issurprisingly invariant, ranging only between 59 and 74% of phytoplanktonprimary production across systems differing in seasonality, trophic status,latitude, or salinity. Thus an important biological process in the worldocean, the daily consumption of recently fixed carbon, appears nearlyconstant. We believe this conclusion is an artefact because dilutionexperiments are 1) prone to providing over-estimates of grazing rates and 2)unlikely to furnish evidence of low grazing rates. In our view the overallaverage rate of microzooplankton grazing probably does not exceed 50% ofprimary production and may be even lower in oligotrophic systems.

[学科分类] 海洋学与技术