Spatial variability in plankton metabolic balance in the tropical Indian Ocean during spring intermonsoon

Abstract

The tropical Indian Ocean consists of three basins, namely the Arabian Sea (AS), Bay of Bengal (BoB) and Southern Indian Ocean (SIO), with relatively nutrient-rich waters in the former two basins. It is hypothesized that the excess carbon produced in the northern Indian Ocean may support heterotrophic carbon demand in the SIO. In order to test this hypothesis, deck incubation experiments were conducted during the spring intermonsoon under the aegis of the Indian-GEOTRACES program. Nutrients in the mixed layer were low in the SIO compared to AS and BoB due to strong thermal stratification in the former region. Dominant net autotrophy was noticed in the AS whereas net heterotrophy in the BoB and SIO. High community respiration (CR) was observed in the BoB which may be supported by riverine organic carbon, whereas in situ produced and advected excess carbon from the northern Indian Ocean may support in AS and SIO respectively. Net community production (NCP) displayed an inverse (linear) relationship with temperature (salinity) in the euphotic zone in the BoB and SIO suggesting that stratification driven by river discharge and equatorial currents, respectively, reduced nutrients inputs through vertical mixing in the upper ocean resulting in the formation of the strong net heterotrophy and contrast to this was found in the AS due to increase in primary production due to nitrogen fixation. The euphotic zone integrated nutrients displayed a linear relationship with NCP and Gross Primary Production (GPP) indicating that the availability of nutrients controlled the plankton metabolic rates in the tropical Indian Ocean. The threshold of GPP for plankton metabolic balance in the tropical Indian Ocean (1.9 mmol O₂ m⁻³ d⁻¹) was close to that of the global mean (2.2 mmol O₂ m⁻³ d⁻¹). The slope of the log-log relationship between GPP and CR was 0.5 and it is close to that of the global mean value of 0.60.