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Potential export of unattached benthic macroalgae to the deep sea through wind-driven Langmuir circulation
Department of Marine Sciences and Geography, University of Connecticut, Groton, Connecticut, USA
Department of Ocean, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, Old Dominion University, Norfolk, Virginia, USA
Department of Ocean, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, Old Dominion University, Norfolk, Virginia, USA
Department of Ocean, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, Old Dominion University, Norfolk, Virginia, USA
Carbon export to the deep sea is conventionally attributed to the sinking of open ocean phytoplankton. Here, we report a Langmuir supercell event driven by high winds across the shallow Great Bahama Bank that organized benthic non-attached macroalgae, Colpomenia sp., into visible windrows on the seafloor. Ocean color satellite imagery obtained before and after the windrows revealed a 588 km2 patch that rapidly shifted from highly productive macroalgae to bare sand. We assess a number of possible fates for this macroalgae and contend that this event potentially transported negatively buoyant macroalgae to the deep Tongue of the Ocean in a pulsed export of >7 × 1010 g of carbon. This is equivalent to the daily carbon flux of phytoplankton biomass in the pelagic tropical North Atlantic and 0.2–0.8% of daily carbon flux from the global ocean. Coastal banks and bays are highly productive ecosystems that may contribute substantially to carbon export to the deep sea.
Received 30 September 2008; accepted 14 January 2009; published 18 February 2009.
Citation: (2009), Potential export of unattached benthic macroalgae to the deep sea through wind-driven Langmuir circulation, Geophys. Res. Lett., 36, L04602, doi:10.1029/2008GL036188.
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