Aquatic Sciences Meeting, Albuquerque 2001

SS12 To Sink or Not to Sink: The Role of Zooplankton for Export and Retention of Fecal Pellets and Aggregates (Environmental Connections)

Date: Friday, February 16, 2001, Time: 10:30:00 AM

Location: Aztec

Dam, H, G, Univ. Connecticut, Groton, USA, hans.dam@uconn.edu

Feinberg, L, R, Hatfield Mar. Sci. Center, Newport, USA, Leah.Feinberg@noaa.gov

MATERIALS FOR MODELING ZOOPLANKTON FECAL PELLET FLUX IN THE OCEANS: REANALYSIS OF ALLOMETRIC RELATIONSHIPS RELATED TO PELLET SINKING

This short review is concerned with the gravitational component of zooplankton pellet sinking. Specifically, because many ecosystem models parameterize food-web components in terms of organism size, we compiled and reanalyzed published data on the allometric relationships between weight and fecal pellet volume as well as fecal pellet volume and fecal pellet sinking rate of several groups of zooplantkon. Log-transformed regressions between animal weight and pellet volume were highly significant for the individual groups (p << 0.01, R^2 range: 0.52-0.91) and when all the groups were combined (p << 0.01, r^2 = 0.83). Similarly, log transformed regressions between fecal pellet volume and sinking rate were significant for the individual groups (p << 0.01, r^2 range= 0.18-0.70) and when all the groups were combined (p << 0.01, r^2 = 0.60). For the two kinds of relationships, most of the regressions among the groups were significantly different from each other. We discuss the use of these relationships for modeling efforts.

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Aquatic Sciences Meeting, Albuquerque 2001

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