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Lookup NU author(s): Professor Sam Wilson
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0).
© 2023 Copernicus GmbH. All rights reserved.Marine diazotrophs convert dinitrogen (N2) gas into bioavailable nitrogen (N), supporting life in the global ocean. In 2012, the first version of the global oceanic diazotroph database (version 1) was published. Here, we present an updated version of the database (version 2), significantly increasing the number of in situ diazotrophic measurements from 13 565 to 55 286. Data points for N2 fixation rates, diazotrophic cell abundance, and nifH gene copy abundance have increased by 184 %, 86 %, and 809 %, respectively. Version 2 includes two new data sheets for the nifH gene copy abundance of non-cyanobacterial diazotrophs and cell-specific N2 fixation rates. The measurements of N2 fixation rates approximately follow a log-normal distribution in both version 1 and version 2. However, version 2 considerably extends both the left and right tails of the distribution. Consequently, when estimating global oceanic N2 fixation rates using the geometric means of different ocean basins, version 1 and version 2 yield similar rates (43–57 versus 45–63 Tg N yr−1; ranges based on one geometric standard error). In contrast, when using arithmetic means, version 2 suggests a significantly higher rate of 223 ± 30 Tg N yr−1 (mean ± standard error; same hereafter) compared to version 1 (74 ± 7 Tg N yr−1). Specifically, substantial rate increases are estimated for the South Pacific Ocean (88 ± 23 versus 20 ± 2 Tg N yr−1), primarily driven by measurements in the southwestern subtropics, and for the North Atlantic Ocean (40 ± 9 versus 10 ± 2 Tg N yr−1). Moreover, version 2 estimates the N2 fixation rate in the Indian Ocean to be 35 ± 14 Tg N yr−1, which could not be estimated using version 1 due to limited data availability. Furthermore, a comparison of N2 fixation rates obtained through different measurement methods at the same months, locations, and depths reveals that the conventional 15N2 bubble method yields lower rates in 69 % cases compared to the new 15N2 dissolution method. This updated version of the database can facilitate future studies in marine ecology and biogeochemistry. The database is stored at the Figshare repository (https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.21677687; Shao et al., 2022).
Author(s): Shao Z, Xu Y, Wang H, Luo W, Wang L, Huang Y, Nona Sheila RA, Ahmed A, Benavides M, Bentzon-Tilia M, Berman-Frank I, Berthelot H, Biegala IC, Bif MB, Bode A, Bonnet S, Bronk DA, Brown MV, Campbell L, Capone DG, Carpenter EJ, Cassar N, Chang BX, Chappell D, Yuh-Ling LC, Church MJ, Cornejo-Castillo FM, Sacilotto Detoni AM, Doney SC, Dupouy C, Estrada M, Fernandez C, Fernandez-Castro B, Fonseca-Batista D, Foster RA, Furuya K, Garcia N, Goto K, Gago J, Gradoville MR, Hamersley MR, Henke BA, Horstmann C, Jayakumar A, Jiang Z, Kao S-J, Karl DM, Kittu LR, Knapp AN, Kumar S, LaRoche J, Liu H, Liu J, Lory C, Loscher CR, Maranon E, Messer LF, Mills MM, Mohr W, Moisander PH, Mahaffey C, Moore R, Mourino-Carballido B, Mulholland MR, Shin-Ichiro N, Needoba JA, Raes EJ, Rahav E, Ramirez-Cardenas T, Reeder CF, Riemann L, Riou V, Robidart JC, Sarma VVSS, Sato T, Saxena H, Selden C, Seymour JR, Shi D, Shiozaki T, Singh A, Sipler RE, Sun J, Suzuki K, Takahashi K, Tan Y, Tang W, Tremblay J-E, Turk-Kubo K, Wen Z, White AE, Wilson ST, Yoshida T, Zehr JP, Zhang R, Zhang Y, Luo Y-W
Publication type: Article
Publication status: Published
Journal: Earth System Science Data
Year: 2023
Volume: 15
Issue: 8
Pages: 3673-3709
Online publication date: 15/08/2023
Acceptance date: 01/07/2023
Date deposited: 09/11/2023
ISSN (print): 1866-3508
ISSN (electronic): 1866-3516
Publisher: Copernicus Publications
URL: https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-15-3673-2023
DOI: 10.5194/essd-15-3673-2023
Data Access Statement: The database is available in a data repository (https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.21677687, Shao et al., 2022).
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