Abstract
Dissolved C, N, P, and Si budgets for Tomales Bay, California, have been used to solve simultaneous stoichiometric equations which describe a plausible material balance for net organic matter reactions in the bay. Dissolved Si and P were both exported hydrographically. Dissolved C and fixed N were imported hydrographically. If we assume that C, N, P, and Si were supplied to the bay as organic detritus and remineralized at a rate required to balance dissolved Si and P exports, we can calculate reasonable rates of denitrification and CO2 gas evasion across the air-water interface. The system is thus interpreted to have been net heterotrophic at the time of our investigation.Fluxes attributed to individual components in the system (benthic respiration, water-column material turnover, biochemical transformations between fixed and gaseous N) were of sufficient magnitude to account for the system-wide net fluxes, although too noisy to allow piecewise derivation of net system fluxes. Denitrification and limitation of primary production by dissolved fixed N in aquatic ecosystems may be symptoms of other system-scale constraints on net C metabolism, rather than themselves being system-level controls of net C metabolism.
Recommended Citation
Smith, S. V., W. J. Wiebe, J. T. Hollibaugh, S. J. Dollar, S. W. Hager, B. E. Cole, G. W. Tribble, and P. A. Wheeler. 1987. "Stoichiometry of C, N, P, and Si fluxes in a temperate-climate embayment." Journal of Marine Research 45, (2). https://elischolar.library.yale.edu/journal_of_marine_research/1855