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Updated: Jun 10, 2026

The Benthic Exchange of O2, N2 and Dissolved Nutrients Using Small Core Incubations
Published on: August 3, 2016
Warm-core eddy intensifies surface mixotrophic bacterivory and fuels mesopelagic heterotrophic grazing
Ying Wang1,2,3,4, Xin Liu1, Zhonghua Zhao5
1State Key Laboratory of Marine Environmental Science, College of Ocean and Earth Sciences, Xiamen University, Xiamen, China.
Abstract:
Anticyclonic eddies (ACEs) restructure resources and drive trophic cascades, yet depth-resolved effects on nanoflagellate bacterivory remain unclear. We quantify bacterivory by phago-mixotrophic nanophytoplankton (PMNP) and heterotrophic nanoflagellate (HNF) using fluorescent-bead incubations in a warm-core ACE in the South China Sea. Despite a 16% decline in nanoeukaryotes, PMNP abundance increases significantly (2.8× surface, 1.4× deep chlorophyll maximum (DCM), shifts toward larger cells, and elevates bacterial turnover and phago-mixotrophic production. HNF community grazing also increases at both euphotic depths despite similar per-cell rates, yielding impacts comparable to PMNP. Structural equation models link PMNP grazing to surface water-mass properties and nutrients and DCM turbidity, whereas HNF grazing tracks water-mass and prey/virus dynamics. In the mesopelagic zone, HNFs dominate; grazing HNF abundance increases 2.7× at 500 m and is associated with particulate beam attenuation coefficient, an in situ particle proxy. These findings reveal a depth-partitioned response coupling mesoscale forcing to microbial carbon processing.
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