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Krill body size drives particulate organic carbon export in West Antarctica

Nature volume 618, pages 526–530 (2023)Cite this article

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Abstract

The export of carbon from the ocean surface and storage in the ocean interior is important in the modulation of global climate1,2,3,4. The West Antarctic Peninsula experiences some of the largest summer particulate organic carbon (POC) export rates, and one of the fastest warming rates, in the world5,6. To understand how warming may alter carbon storage, it is necessary to first determine the patterns and ecological drivers of POC export7,8. Here we show that Antarctic krill (Euphausia superba) body size and life-history cycle, as opposed to their overall biomass or regional environmental factors, exert the dominant control on the POC flux. We measured POC fluxes over 21 years, the longest record in the Southern Ocean, and found a significant 5-year periodicity in the annual POC flux, which oscillated in synchrony with krill body size, peaking when the krill population was composed predominately of large individuals. Krill body size alters the POC flux through the production and export of size-varying faecal pellets9, which dominate the total flux. Decreases in winter sea ice10, an essential habitat for krill, are causing shifts in the krill population11, which may alter these export patterns of faecal pellets, leading to changes in ocean carbon storage.

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Fig. 1: WAP POC flux time series from 1992 to 2013.
Fig. 2: Annual POC flux oscillates on a five-year periodicity.
Fig. 3: Summer Antarctic krill body size drives annual POC flux.

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Data availability

The data analysed in this study can be found at: https://doi.org/10.6073/pasta/cb0ee837fd2615ae133dcfdc0b806571, https://doi.org/10.6073/pasta/d0b492b09b678d55db046e27ebe9d1c1, https://doi.org/10.6073/pasta/2afc968fad7d40c989de532f52e6720b, https://doi.org/10.6073/pasta/03e6d72a78bc2512ef5bb327e686f8fa, https://doi.org/10.6073/pasta/60b41cfa5eaa7298f84b9ac291037403, https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7723853 and https://doi.org/10.6073/pasta/585ba08c3ab00f7d36f3756bb8e7f79b. Bathymetry data can be found at https://doi.org/10.7289/V5C8276M.

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Acknowledgements

This research was supported by NSF grants OPP 9011927, 9632763, 0217282 2026045, 0823101, and 1440435 for the Palmer Long-Term Ecological Research (PAL-LTER) project. R.T. thanks the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program, and the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences at Columbia University for support. W.R.F. acknowledges support from the Detroit Zoological Society and NSF Office of Polar Programs (ANT-1745018). We are grateful to the officers and crews of the MV Polar Duke and ARSV Laurence M. Gould, and the science and logistics support on the PAL-LTER research cruises. This work would not be possible without the PAL-LTER field teams who aided in data collection. We thank D. Karl (University of Hawaii), who started the sediment-trap time series in 1992; T. Houlihan (1992–1997) and C. Carrillo (1998–2002) who supervised University of Hawaii sediment-trap deployments; and N. Shelton (2014–2019) for management efforts, deployment and recovery of Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory sediment traps. U. Magaard (1992–2002) and H. Quinby (2003–2006) supervised sample analyses at University of Hawaii and VIMS, respectively. We thank J. Cope, M. Gleiber and J. Conroy (Virginia Institute of Marine Science) who compiled and supplied krill data for this analysis; R. Ross and L. Quetin for PAL-LTER krill collection and data before 2009; and PAL-LTER colleagues for discussions.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Deparment of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA

    Rebecca Trinh & Hugh W. Ducklow

  2. Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, Columbia University, Palisades, NY, USA

    Rebecca Trinh & Hugh W. Ducklow

  3. Virginia Institute of Marine Science, William & Mary, Gloucester Point, VA, USA

    Deborah K. Steinberg

  4. Polar Oceans Research Group, Sheridan, MT, USA

    William R. Fraser

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Contributions

R.T.: conceptualization, acquisition of data, formal analysis, visualization, writing—original draft. H.W.D.: conceptualization, acquisition of data, writing—review and editing, funding acquisition. D.K.S.: acquisition of data, writing—review and editing. W.R.F.: acquisition of data, writing—review and editing. R.T., H.W.D., D.K.S. and W.R.F. approved the submitted version for publication.

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Correspondence to Rebecca Trinh.

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Extended data figures and tables

Extended Data Fig 1 Bathymetric map of the Antarctic Peninsula.

Location of PAL–LTER sampling stations (black circles) within grid lines labeled –100-600, Palmer Station on Anvers Island (yellow triangle), and long-term sediment trap (red diamond), Marguerite Bay, and Charcot Island are shown. White dashed lines separate geographical coast, shelf, and slope regions of the West Antarctic Peninsula.

Extended Data Fig. 2 Annual POC flux is not a function of peak POC flux duration.

The regression is non-significant (R2 = 0.026, p = 0.54).

Extended Data Fig. 3 Annual POC flux does not correlate with total krill abundance.

a) Annual POC flux (blue circles) and total krill abundance anomaly (black diamonds) time series from 1993–2012. b) Annual POC flux as a function of total krill abundance anomaly (R2 = –0.15, p = 0.13).

Extended Data Fig. 4 Annual POC flux is not driven by adult krill abundance.

a) Annual POC flux (blue circles) and adult krill abundance anomaly (black diamonds) time series from 1993–2012. b) Annual POC flux as a function of adult krill abundance anomaly (R2 = 0.063, p = 0.35).

Extended Data Fig. 5 Annual POC flux oscillates in sync with adult krill body size obtained through net tows and penguin diets.

Annual POC flux (blue circles), annual mean adult krill body size from net tows (black diamonds), and annual mean adult krill body size from Adélie penguin diets (red squares) time-series from 1993–2012.

Extended Data Fig. 6 Penguin derived krill body size and annual POC flux.

Annual POC flux as a function of annual mean adult krill body size from Adélie penguin diet time-series (R2 = 0.36, p = 0.01).

Extended Data Fig. 7 Krill body size is negatively correlated with krill abundance.

a) Annual mean krill body size (from net tows) as a function of annual krill abundance (R2 = −0.50, p < 0.001). b) Annual mean total krill body size from Adélie penguin diets as a function of annual total krill abundance anomaly (R2 = –0.43, p = 0.001).

Extended Data Table 1 Influence of ecological parameters on POC flux
Full size table

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Trinh, R., Ducklow, H.W., Steinberg, D.K. et al. Krill body size drives particulate organic carbon export in West Antarctica. Nature 618, 526–530 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-023-06041-4

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