Carbon Isotope Biogeochemistry of Lipid Biomakers in Particulate Matter and Surface Sediments of the Sargasso Seaand the Black Sea

这项研究的主要目标是应用生物标志物分子、结构/化合物特异性同位素分析来研究一套来自黑海和马尾藻海的颗粒样品和表层沉积物。该项目旨在证明，颗粒状有机物的化合物碳同位素组成提供了更多关于水柱中颗粒物的来源和加工的信息，仅通过大量碳同位素测量和类脂生物标志物分布就可以获得这些信息。我们将对两个明显不同的海洋系统中颗粒有机物的行为有新的认识：含氧的贫营养水柱(马尾藻海)和海洋缺氧盆地(黑海)。之所以选择这两个地点，是因为目前手头有用于脂质生物标记物和同位素分析的样本套件。来自这两个位置的颗粒也将具有非常不同的脂质分布，并且同样应该具有不同的同位素组成。因此，这项研究不仅将确定海洋中某个位置的颗粒在深度剖面上的生物标志物/同位素特征，还将比较在非常不同的环境中的生物物质处理。

The primary objective of this research is to apply combined biomarker molecular.structural/compound.specific isotopic analyses to study of a suite of particulate samples and surface sediments from the Black Sea and the Sargasso Sea. This project is aimed at demonstrating that compound.specific carbon isotope compositions of particulate organic matter provide substantially more information on the sources and processing of particulate matter in the water column that can be obtained by bulk carbon isotopic measurements and lipid biomarker distributions alone. New insight will be gained into the behavior of particulate organic matter in two markedly different oceanic regimes: an oxygenated oligotrophic water column (the Sargasso Sea) and a marine anoxic basin (the Black Sea). These two sites are chosen because sample suites for lipid biomarker and isotopic analyses are presently on hand. Particles from these two locations will also have very different lipid distributions and should likewise have different isotopic compositions. Thus, this study will not only be determining the biomarker/isotope signatures of particles in a depth profile from some location in the ocean but will also be comparing organism matter processing in the very different environments.