Connections between climate, food limitation, and carbon cycling in abyssal sediment communities.

ABSTRACT: Diverse faunal groups inhabit deep-sea sediments over much of Earth's surface, but our understanding of how interannual-scale climate variation alters sediment community components and biogeochemical processes remains limited. The vast majority of deep-sea communities depend on a particulate organic carbon food supply that sinks from photosynthetically active surface waters. Variations in food supply depend, in part, on surface climate conditions. Proposed ocean iron fertilization efforts are also intended to alter surface production and carbon export from surface waters. Understanding the ecology of the abyssal sediment community and constituent metazoan macrofauna is important because they influence carbon and nutrient cycle processes at the seafloor through remineralization, bioturbatio

SUBMITTER: Ruhl HA 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2579368 | biostudies-literature | 2008 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature