Abstract
In the past decade, a number of elegant experiments have demonstrated that for some marine organisms, the bioavailability of copper, zinc and iron is related to the free ion activity rather than the total concentration of trace metal (Sunda and Guillard, 1976; Anderson et al., 1978; Anderson and Morel, 1982). This does not necessarily imply that the free metal ion is the only form taken up by these organisms but it does mean that studies of chemical speciation are of vital importance in understanding the role of essential or toxic trace metals in determining the fertility of natural waters. While the inorganic speciation is fairly well characterized, virtually nothing is known about the chemical nature and co-ordinating strength of naturally occurring organic ligands. In this paper I discuss one approach to investigating trace metal organic complexes in seawater.
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