Major role of planktonic phosphate reduction in the marine phosphorus redox cycle
The phosphorus redox cycle
Phosphorus in the oceans cycles between +5 and +3 oxidation states. Most of the oceans' phosphorus is present as oxidized bioavailable phosphate (+5) compounds. Reduced organophosphorus compounds are also present but at much lower concentrations. Through field measurements in the western tropical North Atlantic Ocean and a series of laboratory incubations, Van Mooy et al. measured fast reduction rates of a small but appreciable amount of phosphates by plankton communities, forming phosphites and phosphonates (see the Perspective by Benitez-Nelson). On a global scale, this phosphorus redox cycle adds as much reduced phosphorus to the oceans as all pre-anthropogenic land runoff.
Abstract
Phosphorus in the +5 oxidation state (i.e., phosphate) is the most abundant form of phosphorus in the global ocean. An enigmatic pool of dissolved phosphonate molecules, with phosphorus in the +3 oxidation state, is also ubiquitous; however, cycling of phosphorus between oxidation states has remained poorly constrained. Using simple incubation and chromatography approaches, we measured the rate of the chemical reduction of phosphate to P(III) compounds in the western tropical North Atlantic Ocean. Colonial nitrogen-fixing cyanobacteria in surface waters played a critical role in phosphate reduction, but other classes of plankton, including potentially deep-water archaea, were also involved. These data are consistent with marine geochemical evidence and microbial genomic information, which together suggest the existence of a vast oceanic phosphorus redox cycle.
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Supplementary Material
Summary
Materials and Methods
Figs. S1 to S4
Tables S1 to S3
Resources
File (van_mooy.sm.pdf)
References and Notes
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Published In
Science
Volume 348 | Issue 6236
15 May 2015
15 May 2015
Copyright
Copyright © 2015, American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Submission history
Received: 30 January 2015
Accepted: 3 April 2015
Published in print: 15 May 2015
Acknowledgments
We are grateful for the assistance of the officers and crew of the R/V Atlantic Explorer and the support of D. Polyviou (University of Southampton), J. Tagliaferre (Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution), and the entire PABST Cruise scientific party. We also thank T. Bibby, A. Hitchock, and C. M. Moore, (University of Southampton) as well as A. Santoro (University of Maryland), for insightful discussions and R. Johnson (Bermuda Institute of Ocean Sciences) for input on the execution of the IC methods at sea. Major support for this study was provided by grants from the NSF to B.A.S.V.M. and S.T.D. (OCE-13-32898 and OCE-13-32912). This work was also supported in part by grants from the Simons Foundation to B.A.S.V.M, S.T.D., and D.J.R. and is a contribution of the Simons Collaboration on Ocean Processes and Ecology. The data presented in all figures, as well as additional environmental data, are provided in tables S2 and S3.
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