海水中におけるサブミクロン粒子状物質の動態

概要

論文の詳細を見る
Sub-micrometre particles (SMP) are one of the important forms of organic matter pools in sea water, because these particles are present in sea water as transit states between dissolved and large particles of organic matter. It is considered that large particles play an important role in the carbon cycle incorporated to the biological pump, but little is known about SMP. Recently, it has been reported that SMP are present very abundant in sea water. In this study, the vertical and temporal distributions of SMP with the size range from 0.6 to 200μm from warm core ring (the western North Pacific ocean) were measured using a Coulter Counter Multisizer II. The total volume of SMP showed maximum value of 9.9x10^6μm^3/ml. These results are compared with planktonic and non-living compositions. The total volume of SMP in-creased during night as non-living particles. The results suggest that SMP is correlated with biological processes, especially microbial food-web, but the whole vertical distribution of SMP might be determined primarily by physical structures that is the depth of the pycnocline in the ocean.