Interrelations Between Elements Whose Distribution Is Affected by Biological Activity
Because the relative composition of organisms living in the sea differs from that of sea water, their growth will tend to modify the composition of the water. The ultimate regeneration of the inorganic substances by biological processes will return the elements to solution, but the net effects will usually be in opposite directions at different times and in different parts of the water column. Tables 50 and 51 show that certain elements present in the water in low concentrations, such as nitrogen, phosphorus, iron, and silicon, are those removed in the largest relative amounts. The distribution of these elements, known as the plant nutrients, is profoundly affected by biological activity, their concentrations are virtually independent of salinity, and they are commonly referred to as nonconservative, in contrast to those elements that bear a constant ratio to the total dissolved solids.
Plants are the most important “consumers” of the inorganic substances. Their activity is restricted to the upper layers of the sea (the euphotic zone), where there is adequate light for them to carry on photosynthesis. In nearshore areas the thickness of the euphotic layer may be only a few meters, and even in the open sea, where the transparency is great, the growth of plants is restricted to the upper few hundred meters (chapter XVI). Animals living below the euphotic layer may remove elements from solution which are necessary for the secretion of skeletal structures, but most of the materials must come directly or indirectly from plants that develop near the surface. The metabolic activities of the plants, animals, and bacteria return the elements to inorganic form. Part of the regeneration must occur in the euphotic layer, but there is a general downward movement of the particulate matter, either living or dead, and, consequently, a continuous transport of the elements away from the surface layer. As described thus far, it
Redfield (1934), following an earlier suggestion by Harvey, showed that regardless of the absolute concentrations a constant ratio exists between the nitrate-nitrogen and phosphate-phosphorus content of sea water, that these elements are apparently removed from the water by organisms in the same proportions in which they occur, and that on the death and decomposition of the organisms they are returned to solution simultaneously. Cooper (1938a) proposed a modified ratio, pointing out that the phosphorus data for sea water used by Redfield had not been corrected for salt error. Fleming (1940) obtained from examination of additional data a slightly different relationship for the N:P in plankton. All these figures are given in table 52, which also shows the relation of carbon to the other two elements in plankton.
Source | By weight | By atoms | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
C | N | P | C | N | P | |
Redfield (1934) Plankton | 53.2 | 8.2 | 1 | |||
Redfield (1934) Seawater | 9.0 | 1 | 20 | 1 | ||
Cooper (1938a) Seawater | 6.8 | 1 | 15 | 1 | ||
Fleming (1940) Phytoplankton | 42 | 7 | 1 | |||
Fleming (1940) Zooplankton | 40 | 7.4 | 1 | |||
Fleming—Average: Plankton. | 41 | 7.2 | 1 | 106 | 16 | 1 |
The ratios given above hold very well for the nitrate and phosphate in ocean waters (see fig. 51), but, since they represent the net effect of biological activity, marked deviations from the ratios may be found in individual types of organisms. However, they indicate the order of magnitude of the relationships in marine organisms.
In order to extend the usefulness of these relationships, it is worth while to add the oxygen. As an approximation, it may be assumed that two atoms of oxygen are required for the oxidation of each atom of
In the euphotic layer, for each milligram of phosphorus utilized in photosynthesis, these ratios indicate that the plants will take up 7.2 mg of nitrogen (chiefly nitrate) and 76 ml of CO2 and release the same volume of oxygen. At lower levels, where regeneration is taking place, the consumption of 76 ml of O2 should set free the corresponding amounts of CO2, N, and P. The oxygen saturation value for water of 5° temperature is of the order of 7.0 ml/L; hence it may be seen that, if all of the oxygen has been consumed in subsurface water of approximately this temperature, the NO3-N and PO4-P will be increased by about 50 μg-atoms/L (0.650 mg/L) and 3 μg-atoms/L (0.090 mg/L), respectively. These values are approximately the largest amounts ever encountered in the ocean. If all the waters leaving the surface were saturated with oxygen and completely depleted of nitrate and phosphate, it might be expected that there would be a close agreement in the deeper waters between these substances and the oxygen depletion (difference between the saturation value and the observed content). Such a general relationship exists in waters that have left the surface in lower latitudes, but in higher latitudes water sinking from the surface is saturated with oxygen and contains appreciable amounts of nutrients; hence the relationship between the oxygen depletion and the nutrient content must have the form
where V is a variable amount in the water that sinks from the surface. In those regions in which there is a well-defined layer of minimum oxygen content at subsurface levels, layers of maximal nitrate and phosphate usually exist at or somewhat below the oxygen minimum.The above comments do not necessarily apply to elements composing hard “inorganic” skeletal structures. Both calcium carbonate and silica are utilized by organisms in the euphotic layer and elsewhere, but the ratios of utilization of Ca, C as CO3, and Si with reference to, say, phosphate-P, depend upon the character of the organisms. As pointed out elsewhere (p. 208), CaCO3 is removed from the surface layers, and the same is true of the SiO2. Although there is generally a depletion of Si in regions where the nitrate-N and phosphate-P are low, the processes of re-solution of calcareous and siliceous structures do not necessarily parallel decomposition and the regeneration of the elements found in the soft parts of the organisms. Therefore, the general distribution of silicon in the sea differs somewhat from that of phosphate and nitrate, and the ratios between Si and N and Si and P are variable.

Locations of vertical sections and stations used to illustrate the distribution of phosphate, nitrate, and silicate, in the oceans.
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