Note to users. If you're seeing this message, it means that your browser cannot find this page's style/presentation instructions -- or possibly that you are using a browser that does not support current Web standards. Find out more about why this message is appearing, and what you can do to make your experience of our site the best it can be.

Science 9 June 2006:
Vol. 312. no. 5779, pp. 1517 - 1520
DOI: 10.1126/science.1123570
Prev | Table of Contents | Next

Reports

Transatlantic Abundance of the N2-Fixing Colonial Cyanobacterium Trichodesmium

Cabell S. Davis1* and Dennis J. McGillicuddy, Jr.2

Colonial diazotrophic cyanobacteria of the genus Trichodesmium are thought to play a significant role in the input of new nitrogen to upper layers of the tropical and subtropical oceanic ecosystems that cover nearly half of Earth's surface. Here we describe results of a transatlantic survey in which a noninvasive underwater digital microscope (the video plankton recorder), was towed across the North Atlantic at 6 meters per second while undulating between the surface and 130 meters. Colony abundance had a basin-scale trend, a clear association with anticyclonic eddies, and was not affected by hurricane-forced mixing. Subsurface abundance was higher than previously reported, which has important implications for the global ocean nitrogen cycle.

1 Biology Department, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
2 Department of Applied Ocean Physics and Engineering, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Woods Hole, MA 02543–1541, USA.

* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: cdavis{at}whoi.edu

Read the Full Text


THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN CITED BY OTHER ARTICLES:
Fantastic Fixers.
R. W. Fulweiler (2009)
Science 326, 377-378
   Abstract »    Full Text »    PDF »
Abundances and Distributions of the Dominant nifH Phylotypes in the Northern Atlantic Ocean.
R. J. Langlois, D. Hummer, and J. LaRoche (2008)
Appl. Envir. Microbiol. 74, 1922-1931
   Abstract »    Full Text »    PDF »


To Advertise     Find Products

Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)