The relative influences of nitrogen and phosphorus on oceanic primary production

Toby Tyrrell ()
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Toby Tyrrell: School of Ocean and Earth Science, Southampton Oceanography Centre, University of Southampton

Nature, 1999, vol. 400, issue 6744, 525-531

Abstract: Abstract A simple model has the potential to resolve the long-running debate amongst oceanographers over whether nitrogen or phosphorus exerts overall control on oceanic primary production. A representation of the competition between nitrogen-fixing and other phytoplankton is inserted into a two-box global model of the oceanic nitrogen and phosphorus cycles. Homeostatic regulation of both nitrate and phosphate concentrations results, with surface waters more deficient in nitrate than phosphate in the steady state, but with external phosphate inputs controlling longer-term primary production in the global ocean.

Date: 1999
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DOI: 10.1038/22941

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