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In the naturally iron-fertilized surface waters of the northern Kerguelen Plateau region, the early spring diatom community composition and contribution to plankton carbon biomass were investigated and compared with the high nutrient, low chlorophyll (HNLC) surrounding waters. The large iron-induced blooms were dominated by small diatom species belonging to the genera Chaetoceros (Hyalochaete) and Thalassiosira, which rapidly responded to the onset of favorable light-conditions in the meander of the Polar Front. In comparison, the iron-limited HNLC area was typically characterized by autotrophic nanoeukaryote-dominated communities and by larger and more heavily silicified diatom species (e.g. Fragilariopsis spp.). Our results support the hypothesis that diatoms are valuable vectors of carbon export to depth in naturally iron-fertilized systems of the Southern Ocean. Furthermore, our results corroborate observations of the exported diatom assemblage from a sediment trap deployed in the iron-fertilized area, whereby the dominant Chaetoceros (Hyalochaete) cells were less efficiently exported than the less abundant, yet heavily silicified, cells of Thalassionema nitzschioides and Fragilariopsis kerguelensis. Our observations emphasize the strong influence of species-specific diatom cell properties combined with trophic interactions on matter export efficiency, and illustrate the tight link between the specific composition of phytoplankton communities and the biogeochemical properties characterizing the study area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study reports detailed silicoflagellate assemblage composition and annual seasonal flux from sediment traps at four locations along a transect across the Southern Ocean frontal systems. The four traps sampled the central Subantarctic Zone (SAZ, 47°S site), the Subantarctic Front (SAF, 51°S site), the Polar Frontal Zone (54°S site) and the Antarctic Zone (61°S site) across the 140°E longitude. Annual silicoflagellate fluxes to the deep ocean exhibited a similar latitudinal trend to those of diatom fluxes reported in previous work, with maxima in the Antarctic Zone and minima in the Subantarctic Zone. The data suggest that, along with diatoms, silicoflagellates are important contributors to biogenic silica export at all sites, particularly in the Subantarctic Zone. Two main silicoflagellate genera were observed, with Stephanocha sp. (previously known as Distephanus) dominating polar waters and Dictyocha sp. important in sub-polar waters. This is consistent with previous use of the Dictyocha / Stephanocha ratio to infer paleotemperatures and monitor shifts in the position of the Polar Frontal Zone in the sedimentary record. It appears possible to further refine the application of this approach by using the ratio between two Dictyocha species, because Dictyocha aculeata dominated at the Subantarctic Front, while Dictyocha stapedia dominated in the central Subantarctic Front. Given the well-defined environmental affinities of both species, a new SAF silicoflagellate index (SAF-SI) based on this ratio is proposed as a useful diagnostic for SAF and SAZ water mass signatures in the Plio-Pleistocene and Holocene sedimentary record. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on a study about the production and dissolution of biogenic silica (bSiO2) at three biochemically contrasting sites located in the Subantarctic Zone (SAZ) and the Polar Frontal Zone (PFZ) in the Southern Ocean during summer. Findings indicate that a higher production rate occurs in spring than in summer while spring also posts a net gain of production in the mixed layer as compared to the net loss reported in summer. It adds that PFZ yields higher production rates by unit surface area as compared to SAZ. It notes that the entire silicon (Si) demand by diatoms is supported by bSiO2 dissolution in both zones.

The availability of iron limits primary productivity and the associated uptake of carbon over large areas of the ocean. Iron thus plays an important role in the carbon cycle, and changes in its supply to the surface ocean may have had a significant effect on atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations over glacial–interglacial cycles. To date, the role of iron in carbon cycling has largely been assessed using short-term iron-addition experiments. It is difficult, however, to reliably assess the magnitude of carbon export to the ocean interior using such methods, and the short observational periods preclude extrapolation of the results to longer timescales. Here we report observations of a phytoplankton bloom induced by natural iron fertilization—an approach that offers the opportunity to overcome some of the limitations of short-term experiments. We found that a large phytoplankton bloom over the Kerguelen plateau in the Southern Ocean was sustained by the supply of iron and major nutrients to surface waters from iron-rich deep water below. The efficiency of fertilization, defined as the ratio of the carbon export to the amount of iron supplied, was at least ten times higher than previous estimates from short-term blooms induced by iron-addition experiments. This result sheds new light on the effect of long-term fertilization by iron and macronutrients on carbon sequestration, suggesting that changes in iron supply from below—as invoked in some palaeoclimatic and future climate change scenarios—may have a more significant effect on atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations than previously thought. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An array of deep ocean sediment traps was initiated in 1997 within the Australian sector of the Southern Ocean, and serviced annually for over a decade (the Subantarctic site is ongoing as part of the Southern Ocean Time Series). Here, we expand on previous findings obtained from the shallow traps (~ 1000 m depth) in the Polar Frontal Zone (PFZ) and Subantarctic Zone (SAZ) by examining the chemical composition and diatom assemblages collected by sediment traps deployed at bathypelagic depths in the PFZ (1500 m depth; years 1997–1998, 1999–2000 and 2003–2004) and SAZ (2000 and 3800 m; year 1999–2000). Additionally, the diatom assemblages of the surface sediments below the traps were analyzed to document how the seasonal signal is recorded in the sedimentary record. Analysis of the changes of the BSi:POC ratios with depth at both sites confirms previous work suggesting that the decoupling between Si and C cycles in the Southern Ocean is not different from other biogeochemical provinces of the world's ocean. Comparison of the seasonal flux pattern registered by the traps indicates that the diatom assemblages in the sediments of the Antarctic Zone and PFZ mainly represent the summer period. In contrast, the assemblages found in the sediments of the SAZ are a reflection of the spring and summer months, a period characterized by a larger variability in chemical and physical parameters. The strong correlation between the POC fluxes and the relative abundance of a group of diatom species (mainly Pseudo-nitzschia and small Fragilariopsis ) in the PFZ traps suggest that there is an intimate relationship between the development of these species and the POC pulses to the deepest layers of the water column in this region. Interestingly, analysis of the diatom assemblages in the surface sediments reveals that the strong dissolution in the sediment-water interface removed the signal of these “carbon sinkers” from the sedimentary record leaving the sediment assemblage enriched in heavily silicified species. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We compare the performance of the modern analog technique (MAT), the Imbrie and Kipp transfer function (IKTF), the generalized additive model (GAM) and weighted averaging partial least squares (WA PLS) on a southern hemisphere diatom relative abundance and winter sea ice concentration training data set. All relevant model assumptions are tested with a random 10-fold cross-validation, whilst a hold out cross-validation tested the explanatory power of each model on spatially independent validation data. We used auto correlograms on model residuals, variance partitioning, and principal coordinates analysis of neighbor matrices (PCNM) to investigate the importance of the spatial structure of our training database. A set of hierarchical logistic regression models (or Huisman–Olff–Fresco models) are used to infer the response of each diatom species along the winter sea ice gradient. Our analyses suggest that IKTF is an inappropriate sea ice estimation approach as its underlying statistical assumptions do not hold and the fit of IKTF to our data under cross-validation was poor. We conclude that MAT may be biased by spatial autocorrelation, and together with IKTF fails to provide unbiased estimates of winter sea ice. We find GAM and WA PLS are more appropriate than IKTF and MAT for the estimation of paleo winter sea ice cover throughout the Southern Ocean. However, as WA PLS is based on a unimodal species response, which is rarely exhibited by diatoms along the winter sea ice gradient, we ultimately advocate the application of GAM. GAM only uses diatoms with a statistically significant association, and ecologically based link, with sea ice. GAM outperformed all other models under cross-validation in terms of performance statistics, the fit of GAM to the training dataset and diagnostic tests for model assumptions. We also demonstrate that GAM provides a more detailed and potentially more accurate (based on a comparison with New Zealand and southeast Australian paleo climatic records) paleo winter sea ice record for the southwestern Pacific Ocean in comparison with IKTF, MAT and WA PLS. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]