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From Nano-Gels to Marine Snow: A Synthesis of Gel Formation Processes and Modeling Efforts Involved with Particle Flux in the Ocean

Marine gels (nano-, micro-, macro-) and marine snow play important roles in regulating global and basin-scale ocean biogeochemical cycling. Exopolymeric substances (EPS) including transparent exopolymer particles (TEP) that form from nano-gel precursors are abundant materials in the ocean, accountin...

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Autores principales: Quigg, Antonietta, Santschi, Peter H., Burd, Adrian, Chin, Wei-Chun, Kamalanathan, Manoj, Xu, Chen, Ziervogel, Kai
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8395865/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34449609
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/gels7030114
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author Quigg, Antonietta
Santschi, Peter H.
Burd, Adrian
Chin, Wei-Chun
Kamalanathan, Manoj
Xu, Chen
Ziervogel, Kai
author_facet Quigg, Antonietta
Santschi, Peter H.
Burd, Adrian
Chin, Wei-Chun
Kamalanathan, Manoj
Xu, Chen
Ziervogel, Kai
author_sort Quigg, Antonietta
collection PubMed
description Marine gels (nano-, micro-, macro-) and marine snow play important roles in regulating global and basin-scale ocean biogeochemical cycling. Exopolymeric substances (EPS) including transparent exopolymer particles (TEP) that form from nano-gel precursors are abundant materials in the ocean, accounting for an estimated 700 Gt of carbon in seawater. This supports local microbial communities that play a critical role in the cycling of carbon and other macro- and micro-elements in the ocean. Recent studies have furthered our understanding of the formation and properties of these materials, but the relationship between the microbial polymers released into the ocean and marine snow remains unclear. Recent studies suggest developing a (relatively) simple model that is tractable and related to the available data will enable us to step forward into new research by following marine snow formation under different conditions. In this review, we synthesize the chemical and physical processes. We emphasize where these connections may lead to a predictive, mechanistic understanding of the role of gels in marine snow formation and the biogeochemical functioning of the ocean.
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spelling pubmed-83958652021-08-28 From Nano-Gels to Marine Snow: A Synthesis of Gel Formation Processes and Modeling Efforts Involved with Particle Flux in the Ocean Quigg, Antonietta Santschi, Peter H. Burd, Adrian Chin, Wei-Chun Kamalanathan, Manoj Xu, Chen Ziervogel, Kai Gels Review Marine gels (nano-, micro-, macro-) and marine snow play important roles in regulating global and basin-scale ocean biogeochemical cycling. Exopolymeric substances (EPS) including transparent exopolymer particles (TEP) that form from nano-gel precursors are abundant materials in the ocean, accounting for an estimated 700 Gt of carbon in seawater. This supports local microbial communities that play a critical role in the cycling of carbon and other macro- and micro-elements in the ocean. Recent studies have furthered our understanding of the formation and properties of these materials, but the relationship between the microbial polymers released into the ocean and marine snow remains unclear. Recent studies suggest developing a (relatively) simple model that is tractable and related to the available data will enable us to step forward into new research by following marine snow formation under different conditions. In this review, we synthesize the chemical and physical processes. We emphasize where these connections may lead to a predictive, mechanistic understanding of the role of gels in marine snow formation and the biogeochemical functioning of the ocean. MDPI 2021-08-09 /pmc/articles/PMC8395865/ /pubmed/34449609 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/gels7030114 Text en © 2021 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Review
Quigg, Antonietta
Santschi, Peter H.
Burd, Adrian
Chin, Wei-Chun
Kamalanathan, Manoj
Xu, Chen
Ziervogel, Kai
From Nano-Gels to Marine Snow: A Synthesis of Gel Formation Processes and Modeling Efforts Involved with Particle Flux in the Ocean
title From Nano-Gels to Marine Snow: A Synthesis of Gel Formation Processes and Modeling Efforts Involved with Particle Flux in the Ocean
title_full From Nano-Gels to Marine Snow: A Synthesis of Gel Formation Processes and Modeling Efforts Involved with Particle Flux in the Ocean
title_fullStr From Nano-Gels to Marine Snow: A Synthesis of Gel Formation Processes and Modeling Efforts Involved with Particle Flux in the Ocean
title_full_unstemmed From Nano-Gels to Marine Snow: A Synthesis of Gel Formation Processes and Modeling Efforts Involved with Particle Flux in the Ocean
title_short From Nano-Gels to Marine Snow: A Synthesis of Gel Formation Processes and Modeling Efforts Involved with Particle Flux in the Ocean
title_sort from nano-gels to marine snow: a synthesis of gel formation processes and modeling efforts involved with particle flux in the ocean
topic Review
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8395865/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34449609
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/gels7030114
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