Abstract
Marine dissolved organic matter (DOM) holds ~660 billion metric tons of carbon, making it one of Earth’s major carbon reservoirs that is exchangeable with the atmosphere on annual to millennial time scales. The global ocean scale dynamics of the pool have become better illuminated over the past few decades, and those are very briefly described here. What is still far from understood is the dynamical control on this pool at the molecular level; in the case of this Special Issue, the role of microgels is poorly known. This manuscript provides the global context of a large pool of marine DOM upon which those missing insights can be built.
Highlights
Dissolved organic carbon (DOC) makes up the second largest bioavailable pools of carbon in the ocean (~660 Pg C (1 Pg = 1 × 109 metric tons); [1]) and is second only to the ~50× larger pool of dissolved inorganic carbon
The size of the reservoir, and its complementary functions as a sink for autotrophically fixed carbon and as a source of substrate to microbial heterotrophs, indicate that DOC plays a central role in the ocean carbon cycle [2]
Dissolved organic matter (DOM) in the ocean can be categorized into two fractions based on radiocarbon ages and molecular composition
Summary
Identifying the details and mechanisms of that role in the global ocean remains a great challenge; with relevance to this Special Issue, the contribution of marine gels to those mechanisms is essentially unknown. The paper begins with an evaluation of the spatial distribution of DOC at the regional and basin scales, in both the surface and deep ocean. In this context, the net production of DOC relative to the distribution and timing of marine primary production is evaluated. The net production of DOC relative to the distribution and timing of marine primary production is evaluated It briefly concludes with priorities for present and future research relevant to the role of gels in DOC dynamics. More complete and detailed reviews of DOC dynamics in the ocean are available [7,8,9,10,11,12,13]
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