Transient fertilizing effect of dust in P-deficient LNLC surface ocean

摘要

[1] In much of the world's low-nutrient low-chlorophyll(LNLC) oceans, including the Mediterranean Sea, surfacedissolved inorganic phosphorus (DIP) is below the detectionlimit of conventional techniques. Although dust depositionhas been generally recognized as a major source of P to theMediterranean Sea, the lack of DIP data at nanomolar levelshas so far precluded a quantification of this effect. Thiswork reports the first one-year time series of surfacenanomolar DIP in the Mediterranean Sea. Moreover, bycombining nanomolar DIP data from two field studies (theabove cited time-series and an experimental addition ofSaharan dust to large mesocosms) and one in vitro dustdissolution experiment, we show that dust pulses mayindeed provoke transient increases in DIP concentration (upto 80 nM) in P-starved surface waters of this LNLC region.