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Nature 400, 525-531 (5 August 1999) | doi:10.1038/22941; Received 30 November 1998; Accepted 1 June 1999

Open Innovation Challenges

The relative influences of nitrogen and phosphorus on oceanic primary production

Toby Tyrrell1

  1. School of Ocean and Earth Science, Southampton Oceanography Centre, University of Southampton, European Way, Southampton SO14 3ZH, UK

Correspondence to: Correspondence and requests for materials should be addressed to the author (e-mail: Email: T.Tyrrell@soc.soton.ac.uk).

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A simple model has the potential to resolve the long-running debate amongst oceanographers over whether nitrogen or phosphorus exerts overall control on oceanic primary production. A representation of the competition between nitrogen-fixing and other phytoplankton is inserted into a two-box global model of the oceanic nitrogen and phosphorus cycles. Homeostatic regulation of both nitrate and phosphate concentrations results, with surface waters more deficient in nitrate than phosphate in the steady state, but with external phosphate inputs controlling longer-term primary production in the global ocean.

  1. School of Ocean and Earth Science, Southampton Oceanography Centre, University of Southampton, European Way, Southampton SO14 3ZH, UK

Correspondence to: Correspondence and requests for materials should be addressed to the author (e-mail: Email: T.Tyrrell@soc.soton.ac.uk).