The grazing of abundant microzooplankton causes ultrahigh seawater
dimethylsulfide during Southern Ocean algal blooms
Abstract
Oceanic dimethylsulfide (DMS) is hypothesized to impact cloud formation
and solar radiation budget at Earth’s surface. Ultrahigh seawater DMS
concentrations, up to hundreds of nM, have been observed in the Southern
Ocean, which are commonly attributed to concurrent high phytoplankton
biomass. However, phytoplankton biomass cannot fully explain the
mechanism leading to those extreme values. Herein, we show the results,
including seawater DMS concentrations and other biological and
environmental parameters, in the water column collected in austral
summer of 2015-2016 at the tip of Antarctic Peninsula. Notably,
large-scale ultrahigh seawater DMS (up to 85.2 nM and generally above 40
nM in the upper layer) were observed only in areas with co-existing
phytoplankton blooms and abundant microzooplankton (indicated by
ciliates, whose abundance and biomass were above 1000 ind L-1 and 2 μg
L-1, respectively), suggesting the grazing of abundant microzooplankton
cause the ultrahigh seawater DMS during the bloom seasons of Southern
Ocean.