Back

The ecology of carbon sequestration in coastal upwelling ecosystems

Stukel, M. R.; Aluwihare, L. I.; Bianchi, D.; Forrer, H. J.; Messie, M.

2025-12-30 ecology
10.64898/2025.12.29.696936 bioRxiv
Show abstract

The biological carbon pump (BCP) transports carbon fixed by phytoplankton into the deep ocean via multiple pathways and leads to net carbon dioxide sequestration. The BCP is very active in highly productive eastern boundary upwelling systems (EBUSs), however, the extent to which climate change will impact this key ecosystem service remains uncertain. While this review and synthesis focuses on results from the California Current Ecosystem (the most extensively studied EBUS), similarities and differences are also noted with the Benguela, Canary, and Humboldt ecosystems. We focus on vertical carbon export mediated by sinking particles (responsible for >half of the BCP in EBUSs), as well as subduction of organic matter and vertically migrating zooplankton and fish. We suggest that a plug-flow-reactor conceptual model can be used to link BCP results with physical circulation changes within EBUSs to predict whether climate change will lead to increased or decreased biologically mediated CO2 uptake.

Matching journals

The top 5 journals account for 50% of the predicted probability mass.

50% of probability mass above

"Similar papers" are the closest papers from that journal in the model's embedding space. They show what the match is built on, but the ranking comes mostly from a classifier over the whole training set, not from these examples alone.