Nutrition and Growth of Large Marine Phytoplankton Species and Their Role in New Production

当代生物海洋学的一个主要挑战是调和两种对立的论点，即在开放海洋的真光区再生营养物质是高效的，同时新的产量比之前认为的要大。一种假设是，两个独立的生物系统并行运行：一个由再生大部分营养物质的小微生物组成，对新的生产几乎没有贡献，另一个由大型浮游植物组成，这些浮游植物物种一直存在于背景数字中，并在真光层底部的弱光下响应营养物质的周期性输入而迅速生长。区域，然后迅速下沉。前一种制度得到了很好的研究，但后一种制度却没有得到充分研究。这项研究的目标是研究大型浮游植物的生长，并评估大型浮游植物在极低照度下新生产中的作用。这些结果将为评估大型浮游植物物种对新产量做出巨大贡献的潜力提供基础，同时由于它们生长和下沉的间歇性性质而未被注意到。

A major challenge in contemporary biological oceanography is to reconcile the opposing arguments that nutrient regeneration in the euphotic zone of the open ocean is highly efficient, while at the same time new production is fare greater than previously believed. One hypothesis is that two separate biological systems operate side by side: one composed of small microbes that regenerate most of the nutrients and contribute little to new production and another composed of large phytoplankton species that are ever present in background numbers and that grow rapidly in response to episodic inputs of nutrients at low light levels at the base of the euphotic zone and then sink out quickly. The former system is well studied, but the latter is not. The goal of this research is to study the growth and to gauge the role of large phytoplankton species in new production at very low irradiance. The results will provide a basis for assessing the potential for large phytoplankton species contributing greatly to new production while going unnoticed because of the episodic nature of their growth and sinking.