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The Impact of Fish and the Commercial Marine Harvest on the Ocean Iron Cycle

Although iron is the fourth most abundant element in the Earth's crust, bioavailable iron limits marine primary production in about one third of the ocean. This lack of iron availability has implications in climate change because the removal of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere by phytoplankto...

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Autores principales: Moreno, Allison R., Haffa, Arlene L. M.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2014
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4175471/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25251284
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0107690
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author Moreno, Allison R.
Haffa, Arlene L. M.
author_facet Moreno, Allison R.
Haffa, Arlene L. M.
author_sort Moreno, Allison R.
collection PubMed
description Although iron is the fourth most abundant element in the Earth's crust, bioavailable iron limits marine primary production in about one third of the ocean. This lack of iron availability has implications in climate change because the removal of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere by phytoplankton requires iron. Using literature values for global fish biomass estimates, and elemental composition data we estimate that fish biota store between 0.7–7×10(11) g of iron. Additionally, the global fish population recycles through excretion between 0.4–1.5×10(12) g of iron per year, which is of a similar magnitude as major recognized sources of iron (e.g. dust, sediments, ice sheet melting). In terms of biological impact this iron could be superior to dust inputs due to the distributed deposition and to the greater solubility of fecal pellets compared to inorganic minerals. To estimate a loss term due to anthropogenic activity the total commercial catch for 1950 to 2010 was obtained from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. Marine catch data were separated by taxa. High and low end values for elemental composition were obtained for each taxonomic category from the literature and used to calculate iron per mass of total harvest over time. The marine commercial catch is estimated to have removed 1–6×10(9) g of iron in 1950, the lowest values on record. There is an annual increase to 0.7–3×10(10) g in 1996, which declines to 0.6–2×10(10) g in 2010. While small compared to the total iron terms in the cycle, these could have compounding effects on distribution and concentration patterns globally over time. These storage, recycling, and export terms of biotic iron are not currently included in ocean iron mass balance calculations. These data suggest that fish and anthropogenic activity should be included in global oceanic iron cycles.
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spelling pubmed-41754712014-10-02 The Impact of Fish and the Commercial Marine Harvest on the Ocean Iron Cycle Moreno, Allison R. Haffa, Arlene L. M. PLoS One Research Article Although iron is the fourth most abundant element in the Earth's crust, bioavailable iron limits marine primary production in about one third of the ocean. This lack of iron availability has implications in climate change because the removal of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere by phytoplankton requires iron. Using literature values for global fish biomass estimates, and elemental composition data we estimate that fish biota store between 0.7–7×10(11) g of iron. Additionally, the global fish population recycles through excretion between 0.4–1.5×10(12) g of iron per year, which is of a similar magnitude as major recognized sources of iron (e.g. dust, sediments, ice sheet melting). In terms of biological impact this iron could be superior to dust inputs due to the distributed deposition and to the greater solubility of fecal pellets compared to inorganic minerals. To estimate a loss term due to anthropogenic activity the total commercial catch for 1950 to 2010 was obtained from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. Marine catch data were separated by taxa. High and low end values for elemental composition were obtained for each taxonomic category from the literature and used to calculate iron per mass of total harvest over time. The marine commercial catch is estimated to have removed 1–6×10(9) g of iron in 1950, the lowest values on record. There is an annual increase to 0.7–3×10(10) g in 1996, which declines to 0.6–2×10(10) g in 2010. While small compared to the total iron terms in the cycle, these could have compounding effects on distribution and concentration patterns globally over time. These storage, recycling, and export terms of biotic iron are not currently included in ocean iron mass balance calculations. These data suggest that fish and anthropogenic activity should be included in global oceanic iron cycles. Public Library of Science 2014-09-24 /pmc/articles/PMC4175471/ /pubmed/25251284 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0107690 Text en © 2014 Moreno, Haffa http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are properly credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Moreno, Allison R.
Haffa, Arlene L. M.
The Impact of Fish and the Commercial Marine Harvest on the Ocean Iron Cycle
title The Impact of Fish and the Commercial Marine Harvest on the Ocean Iron Cycle
title_full The Impact of Fish and the Commercial Marine Harvest on the Ocean Iron Cycle
title_fullStr The Impact of Fish and the Commercial Marine Harvest on the Ocean Iron Cycle
title_full_unstemmed The Impact of Fish and the Commercial Marine Harvest on the Ocean Iron Cycle
title_short The Impact of Fish and the Commercial Marine Harvest on the Ocean Iron Cycle
title_sort impact of fish and the commercial marine harvest on the ocean iron cycle
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4175471/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25251284
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0107690
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