Polyphosphate phosphorus in the Great Lakes

Abstract

Polyphosphate (polyP) is important to phytoplankton ecology, but a unified view of its variability and roles in ecosystem-scale phosphorus (P) cycling is lacking. We study polyP in the world's largest freshwater ecosystem, the Laurentian Great Lakes, covering pelagic to nearshore areas across a wide nutrient gradient. We show that polyP (average 10.99 ± 3.90 nmol L⁻¹) constitutes 3.8–30.2% (average 18.1 ± 7.2%) of total particulate P (TPP). PolyP accumulation is higher in low-P pelagic waters compared with more productive nearshore areas. PolyP is preferentially degraded in the water column of the Great Lakes, enhancing P recycling and relieving the nitrogen (N) : P imbalance. Our data enables a coherent large-scale freshwater-to-oceanic comparison. We show that while different plankton groups accumulate different levels of polyP with smaller plankton accumulating more, P availability is the key driver of polyP variability within and across systems.