Hydrothermal vents trigger massive phytoplankton blooms in the Southern Ocean

Mathieu Ardyna (), Léo Lacour, Sara Sergi, Francesco d’Ovidio, Jean-Baptiste Sallée, Mathieu Rembauville, Stéphane Blain, Alessandro Tagliabue, Reiner Schlitzer, Catherine Jeandel, Kevin Robert Arrigo and Hervé Claustre
Additional contact information
Mathieu Ardyna: Laboratoire d’Océanographie de Villefranche (LOV)
Léo Lacour: Laboratoire d’Océanographie de Villefranche (LOV)
Sara Sergi: Laboratoire d’Océanographie et du Climat: Expérimentations et Approches Numériques (LOCEAN-IPSL)
Francesco d’Ovidio: Laboratoire d’Océanographie et du Climat: Expérimentations et Approches Numériques (LOCEAN-IPSL)
Jean-Baptiste Sallée: Laboratoire d’Océanographie et du Climat: Expérimentations et Approches Numériques (LOCEAN-IPSL)
Mathieu Rembauville: Laboratoire d’Océanographie de Villefranche (LOV)
Stéphane Blain: Laboratoire d’Océanographie Microbienne (LOMIC), Observatoire Océanologique
Alessandro Tagliabue: School of Environmental Sciences, University of Liverpool
Reiner Schlitzer: Helmholtz-Center for Polar- and Marine Research
Catherine Jeandel: LEGOS (Université de Toulouse, CNRS, CNES, IRD, UPS)
Kevin Robert Arrigo: Stanford University
Hervé Claustre: Laboratoire d’Océanographie de Villefranche (LOV)

Nature Communications, 2019, vol. 10, issue 1, 1-8

Abstract: Abstract Hydrothermal activity is significant in regulating the dynamics of trace elements in the ocean. Biogeochemical models suggest that hydrothermal iron might play an important role in the iron-depleted Southern Ocean by enhancing the biological pump. However, the ability of this mechanism to affect large-scale biogeochemistry and the pathways by which hydrothermal iron reach the surface layer have not been observationally constrained. Here we present the first observational evidence of upwelled hydrothermally influenced deep waters stimulating massive phytoplankton blooms in the Southern Ocean. Captured by profiling floats, two blooms were observed in the vicinity of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current, downstream of active hydrothermal vents along the Southwest Indian Ridge. These hotspots of biological activity are supported by mixing of hydrothermally sourced iron stimulated by flow-topography interactions. Such findings reveal the important role of hydrothermal vents on surface biogeochemistry, potentially fueling local hotspot sinks for atmospheric CO2 by enhancing the biological pump.

Date: 2019
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-019-09973-6 Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:10:y:2019:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-019-09973-6

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-019-09973-6

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().