Outline
This thesis deals with the interactions between Emiliania huxleyi and dissolved inorganic carbon in seawater. This interaction is separately dealt with for the two directions: The influence of the dissolved inorganic carbon system on E. huxleyi (chapters 1.4, 2 & 3), and the influence of E. huxleyi on the dissolved inorganic carbon system (chapters 1.5, 4 & 5). In the first section it is shown that the growth rate of E. huxleyi is close to the maximum growth rate under typical oceanic conditions of dissolved inorganic carbon (Figure 2.7). Therefore, no feedback between the two directions of interaction is to be expected, and thus there is no third section to deal with this feedback, just as in the model there is no influence of dissolved inorganic carbon on growth rate (chapter 5). Chapter 2 deals with the influence of the different species of the dissolved inorganic carbon (DIC) system on the rates of carbon fixation in particulate organic carbon (POC) and calcite (CaCO3) by E. huxleyi. Chapter 3 deals with the influence of zinc limitation on the use of DIC. Chapter 4 presents the influence of E. huxleyi on the DIC system in a phytoplankton bloom in the North Sea in 1993. Chapter 5 presents the influence of E. huxleyi on the DIC system using a numerical model of a bloom of E. huxleyi. At the end of these two sections some recommendations are given for extending the research in the direction that has been followed in this thesis (at the end of the discussion in chapter 3 and the summary in chapter 5). In order to place these detailed studies in the wider context of the global carbon cycle this chapter starts with three sections on the global carbon cycle (chapter 1.1), the marine carbon cycle (chapter 1.2) and intracellular processes (chapter 1.3). The first section proceeds from the largest pool of carbon on the earth (solid carbonates in the sediments) to the smallest (biomass in the sea), and the second section illustrates how part of this minute pool of biomass in the ocean, the calcifying planktonic algae, are responsible for producing 3/4 of the pool of carbonates (calcite) by slow accumulation over geological timescales. Since it is impossible to give a full description of the research that has been conducted on all of the topics that are briefly addressed here, each subsection ends with some references for further reading.
Homepage: http://www.bgc-jena.mpg.de/~erik.buitenhuis/
Thesis:
http://www.ub.rug.nl/eldoc/dis/science/e.t.buitenhuis/