Overview of activities during the KOSMOS mesocosm study 2017 in the coastal upwelling system off Peru

Abstract

In austral summer 2017 (coincidently during a coastal El Nino event) we deployed eight KOSMOS mesocosm units (53 m3 each) about 4.5 nm off-shore the Peruvian coastline (-12.0554667°, -077.2347667°). The aim of the study was to gather mechanistic understanding of processes controlling plankton productivity, organic matter export, and particle stoichiometry in the coastal upwelling system off Peru. We collected subsurface waters at two different locations in the regional oxygen minimum zone and injected them into four replicate mesocosms, to compare how upwelling of water masses with different oxygen minimum signature influence plankton succession patterns. This video is meant as an illustration of activities during this interdisciplinary mesocosm study in close cooperation with the Peruvian marine institute IMARPE.