References

Ocean Science

Ocean Sci.

1812-0792

Copernicus Publications

Göttingen, Germany

10.5194/os-9-489-2013

Springtime contribution of dinitrogen fixation to primary production across the Mediterranean Sea

Rahav

¹ Herut

² Levi

¹ Mulholland

M. R.

³ Berman-Frank

https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3497-1844

Mina and Everard Goodman Faculty of Life Sciences, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat Gan 52900, Israel

Israel Oceanographic and Limnological Research, National Institute of Oceanography, Haifa 31080, Israel

Department of Ocean, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, Old Dominion University, 4600 Elkhorn Avenue, Norfolk, Virginia 23 529-0276, USA

14 05 2013

9 3 489 498

2013

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License. To view a copy of this licence, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

This article is available from https://os.copernicus.org/articles/9/489/2013/os-9-489-2013.html

The full text article is available as a PDF file from https://os.copernicus.org/articles/9/489/2013/os-9-489-2013.pdf

Dinitrogen (N2) fixation rates were measured during early spring across the different provinces of Mediterranean Sea surface waters. N2 fixation rates, measured using 15N2 enriched seawater, were lowest in the eastern basin and increased westward with a maximum at the Strait of Gibraltar (0.10 to 2.35 nmol N L−1 d−1, respectively). These rates were 3–7 fold higher than N2 fixation rates measured previously in the Mediterranean Sea during summertime and we estimated that methodological differences alone did not account for the seasonal changes we observed. Higher contribution of N2 fixation to primary production (4–8%) was measured in the western basin compared to the eastern basin (&sim;2%). Our data indicates that these differences between basins may be attributed to changes in N2-fixing planktonic communities and that heterotrophic diazotrophy may play a significant role in the eastern Mediterranean while autotrophic diazotrophy has a more dominant role in the western basin.

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