Redfield's evolving legacy

摘要

Few ideas have influenced marine ecology and biogeochemistry more than those first developed by Alfred C. Redfield 80 years ago1. Drawing on the observations of his contemporaries, Redfield marvelled at the close correspondence between the proportions of nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) in phytoplankton biomass, and in average seawater. Two essential features of this correspondence can be seen in the relationship between the major abiotic reservoirs of N and P, nitrate and phosphate (Fig. 1). First, the two nutrients are correlated with a nearly constant slope of roughly 16:1; second, the intercept of that line is very close to zero, meaning that the total amount of nitrate and phosphate present in the ocean also have nearly the same ratio.