Response to Comment on "Nature of Phosphorus Limitation in the Ultraoligotrophic Eastern Mediterranean"

doi:10.1126/science.1126408

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Response to Comment on "Nature of Phosphorus Limitation in the Ultraoligotrophic Eastern Mediterranean"

T. F. Thingstad,¹^* C. S. Law,²^,8 M. D. Krom,³ R. F. C. Mantoura,²^,9 P. Pitta,⁴ S. Psarra,⁴ F. Rassoulzadegan,⁵ T. Tanaka,¹^,5 P. Wassmann,⁶ C. Wexels Riser,⁶ T. Zohary⁷

With no requirement for synoptic treated (IN) and control (OUT)stations, analysis of covariance is an interesting statisticaltechnique for testing IN-OUT differences in Lagrangian experiments,but it has inherent limitations due to its assumption of linearresponses. With this limitation properly considered, we findthat analysis of covariance strengthens, not weakens, experimentalsupport for the food-web transfer mechanisms we proposed.

¹ Department of Biology, University of Bergen, Bergen, Norway.
² Plymouth Marine Laboratory, Plymouth, UK.
³ School of Earth and Environmental Sciences and Earth and Biosphere Institute, Leeds University, Leeds, UK.
⁴ Hellenic Centre for Marine Research, Heraklion, Crete, Greece.
⁵ Station Zoologique, Villefranche-sur-mer, France.
⁶ Norwegian College of Fishery Science, University of Tromsø, Tromsø, Norway.
⁷ Israel Oceanographic and Limnological Research, Kinneret Limnological Laboratory, Tiberias, Israel.
⁸ National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research, Wellington, New Zealand.
⁹ Marine Environment Laboratory, International Atomic Energy Agency, Monaco.

^* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: frede.thingstad{at}bio.uib.no

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TECHNICAL COMMENTS Comment on "Nature of Phosphorus Limitation in the Ultraoligotrophic Eastern Mediterranean": Michelle S. Hale and Richard B. Rivkin (23 June 2006)
Science 312 (5781), 1748c. [DOI: 10.1126/science.1126131]
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REPORTS Nature of Phosphorus Limitation in the Ultraoligotrophic Eastern Mediterranean: T. F. Thingstad, M. D. Krom, R. F. C. Mantoura, G. A. F. Flaten, S. Groom, B. Herut, N. Kress, C. S. Law, A. Pasternak, P. Pitta, S. Psarra, F. Rassoulzadegan, T. Tanaka, A. Tselepides, P. Wassmann, E. M. S. Woodward, C. Wexels Riser, G. Zodiatis, and T. Zohary (12 August 2005)
Science 309 (5737), 1068. [DOI: 10.1126/science.1112632]
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