The microbial carbon pump and the oceanic recalcitrant dissolved organic matter pool.

The authors discuss a correspondence relating to their article "Microbial production of recalcitrant dissolved organic matter: Long-term carbon storage in the global ocean." They argue that a fossil dissolved organic matter (DOM) raised by Chen-Tung Arthur Chen is not relevant to the microbial carbon pump (MCP.) They emphasize that their article considers how microbial processes transform the photo-synthetically fixed carbon from the surface ocean through the water column.