Zooplankton grazing on the coccolithophore Emiliania huxleyi and its role in inorganic carbon flux

Abstract

Grazing and faecal pellet production by the copepods Calanus helgolandicus and Pseudocalanus elongatus, feeding on the coccolithophore Emiliania huxleyi, were measured under defined laboratory conditions, together with the chemical characteristics and sinking rates of the faecal pellets produced. Ingestion rates of both copepods were equivalent at comparable cell concentrations, the relationship between ingestion rate (I, cells copepod-1 h-1) and food concentration (C, cells ml-1), being I=0.558C for both species. P. elongatus produced a larger number of smaller faecal pellets than C. helgolandicus, but egested a larger volume of material per individual. Only between 27 and 50% of the ingested coccolith calcite was egested in the faecal pellets, and it is possible that acid digestion in the copepod gut is responsible for these considerable losses. Average sinking rates of faecal pellets containing E. huxleyi coccoliths, produced by both species, were >100 m d-1. The implications of the quantitative laboratory estimates for the vertical flux of inorganic carbon are considered using recently studied shelf-break and oceanic E. huxleyi blooms in the N. E. Atlantic as examples.