Carbon monoxide emissions by phytoplankton: evidence from laboratory experiments
Valérie Gros A E , Ilka Peeken B C D , Katrin Bluhm B , Eckart Zöllner B , Roland Sarda-Esteve A and Bernard Bonsang AA Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et de l’Environnement-Unité mixte CEA-CNRS-UVSQ, F-91191 Gif sur Yvette, France.
B IFM-GEOMAR, Leibniz Institute of Marine Sciences, Marine Biogeochemistry, Westshore Building, Duesternbrooker Weg 20, D-24105 Kiel, Germany.
C Center for Marine Environmental Sciences, MARUM, Leobener Strasse, D-28359 Bremen, Germany.
D Alfred-Wegener-Institute for Polar- and Marine Research, Biological Oceanography, Am Handelshafen 12, D-27570 Bremerhaven, Germany.
E Corresponding author. Email: valerie.gros@lsce.ipsl.fr
Environmental Chemistry 6(5) 369-379 https://doi.org/10.1071/EN09020
Submitted: 13 February 2009 Accepted: 8 August 2009 Published: 22 October 2009
Environmental context. Carbon monoxide (CO) is a key component for atmospheric chemistry and its production in the ocean, although minor at the global scale, could play a significant role in the remote marine atmosphere. Up to now, CO production in the ocean was considered to mainly originate from the photo-production of dissolved organic matter (mainly under UV radiation). In this paper, we show evidence for direct production of CO by phytoplankton and we suggest it as a significant mechanism for CO production in the ocean.
Abstract. In order to investigate carbon monoxide (CO) emissions by phytoplankton organisms, a series of laboratory experiments was conducted in Kiel (Germany). Nine monocultures, including diatoms, coccolithophorids, chlorophytes and cyanobacteria have been characterised. This was done by following the CO variations from monoculture aliquots exposed to photosynthetically active radiation during one or two complete diurnal cycles. All the studied cultures have shown significant CO production when illuminated. Emission rates have been estimated to range from 1.4 × 10–5 to 8.7 × 10–4 μg of CO μg chlorophyll–1 h–1 depending on the species. When considering the magnitude of the emission rates from the largest CO emitters (cyanobacteria and diatoms), this biotic source could represent up to 20% of the CO produced in oceanic waters. As global models currently mainly consider CO production from the photo-degradation of dissolved organic matter, this study suggests that biotic CO production should also be taken into account. Whether this biological production might also contribute to some degree to the previous observed non-zero CO production below the euphotic zone (dark CO production) cannot be deduced here and needs to be further investigated.
Additional keywords: biological production, CO, ocean, monocultures.
Acknowledgements
The authors thank all the other OOMPH participants to the Kiel laboratory campaign with special thanks to Tom Custer for helping in the set-up of the analytical system. Jonathan Williams, coordinator of the OOMPH project, is gratefully acknowledged for his support during the whole project and for fruitful discussion. The authors thank Carl Brenninkmeijer and Klaus Koeppel for use of the Sofnocat. Anonymous reviewers are thanked for their comments and suggestions which helped to improve the manuscript. The Project OOMPH is funded by the European community (SUSTDEV-2004-3.I.2.1.). This is a LSCE contribution 4009.
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