Sinking rates of natural copepod fecal pellets

Abstract

Many pure samples of natural fecal pellets have been collected from mixed small copepods and from the pontellid copepod Anomalocera patersoni in the Ligurian Sea, using a specially designed pellet collection device. Sinking rates of fresh pellets and pellets aged up to 33 days have been determined at 14°C, the mean temperature of the essentially isothermal water column in the Ligurian Sea. Sinking rates of pellets collected during calm sea states increased with increasing pellet volume, but sinking rates of pellets collected during rough sea (Beaufort scale ≃6) showed little correlation with pellet size. Much of the variability in the sinking rate-pellet size relationships was the result of different pellet composition and compaction, but not pellet age. Pellets produced from laboratory diets of phytoplankton and phytoplankton-sediment mixes showed the expected wide variability in sinking rates, with sediment-ballasted pellets sinking much faster than pellets produced from pure algal diets; thus determination of vertical material fluxes in the sea using laboratory-derived fecal pellet sinking rates is unwarranted. Natural pellet sinking data for small copepods and A. patersoni have been combined with similar data for euphausiids, to yield sinking rates of roughly two orders of magnitude over three orders of magnitude in pellet volume. Pellets from small copepods sank at speeds too slow to be of much consequence to rapid material flux to the deep sea, but they undoubtedly help determine upper water distribution of materials. Recalculation of fecal pellet mass flux estimates from the literature, using our sinking rate data for natural small copepod pellets, yielded estimates about half those of previously published values. Earlier studies had concluded that small fecal pellets were of lesser significance to total material flux than fecal matter; our recalculation strengthens that conclusion. Pellets from large copepods and euphausiids, however, have the capability to transport materials to great depths, and probably do not substantially recycle materials near the surface. The fact that the majority of pellets which had previously been collected in deep traps by other workers were of a size comparable to pellets from our large copepods supports the contention that these larger pellets are the main ones involved in vertical flux.