Beschreibung: We examine the relative dispersion and the contribution of tides on the relative diffusivities of surface drifters in the North Sea. The drifters are released in two clusters, yielding 43 pairs, in the vicinity of a tidal mixing front in the German Bight, which is located in the southeastern area of the North Sea. Both clusters indicate decreasing dispersion when crossing the tidal mixing front, followed by exponentially increasing dispersion with e-folding times of 0.5 days for Cluster 1 and 0.3 days for Cluster 2. A transition of the dispersion regimes is observed at scales of the order of the Rossby radius of deformation (10 km). After that, the relative dispersion grows with a power-law dependency with a short period of ballistic dispersion (quadratic growth), followed by a Richardson regime (cubic growth) in the final phase. Scale-dependent metrics such as the relative diffusivities are consistent with these findings, while the analysis of the finite-scale Lyapunov exponents (FSLEs) shows contradictory results for the submesoscales. In summary, the analysis of various statistical Lagrangian metrics suggests that tracer stirring at the submesoscales is nonlocal and becomes local at separation scales larger than 10 km. The analysis of meridional and zonal dispersion components indicates anisotropic dispersion at the submesoscales, which changes into isotropic dispersion on the mesoscales. Spectral analysis of the relative diffusivity gives evidence that semidiurnal and shallow-water tides influence relative diffusivity at the mesoscales, especially for drifter separations above 50 km.

Beschreibung: The Pacific Ocean constitutes about half of the global oceans and thus microbial processes in this ocean have a large impact on global elemental cycles. Despite several intensely studied regions large areas are still greatly understudied regarding microbial activities, organic matter cycling and biogeography. Refined information about these features is most important to better understand the significance of this ocean for global biogeochemical and elemental cycles. Therefore we investigated a suite of microbial and geochemical variables along a transect from the subantarctic to the subarctic Pacific in the upper 200 m of the water column. The aim was to quantify rates of organic matter processing, identify potential controlling factors and prokaryotic key players. The assessed variables included abundance of heterotrophic prokaryotes and cyanobacteria, heterotrophic prokaryotic production (HPP), turnover rate constants of amino acids, glucose, and acetate, leucine aminopeptidase and β-glucosidase activities, and the composition of the bacterial community by fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH). The additional quantification of nitrate, dissolved amino acids and carbohydrates, chlorophyll a, particulate organic carbon and nitrogen (POC, PON) provided a rich environmental context. The oligotrophic gyres exhibited the lowest prokaryotic abundances, rates of HPP and substrate turnover. Low nucleic acid prokaryotes dominated in these gyres, whereas in temperate and subpolar regions further north and south, high nucleic acid prokaryotes dominated. Turnover rate constants of glucose and acetate, as well as leucine aminopeptidase activity, increased from (sub)tropical toward the subpolar regions. In contrast, HPP and bulk growth rates were highest near the equatorial upwelling and lowest in the central gyres and subpolar regions. The SAR11 clade, the Roseobacter group and Flavobacteria constituted the majority of the prokaryotic communities. Vertical profiles of the biogeochemical and microbial variables markedly differed among the different regions and showed close covariations of the microbial variables and chlorophyll a, POC and PON. The results show that hydrographic, microbial, and biogeochemical properties exhibited distinct patterns reflecting the biogeographic provinces along the transect. The microbial variables assessed contribute to a better and refined understanding of the scales of microbial organic matter processing in large areas of the epipelagic Pacific beyond its well-studied regions.

Beschreibung: Major biogeographic features of the microbial seascape in the oceans have been established and their underlying ecological mechanisms in the (sub)tropical oceans and the Pacific Ocean identified. However, we still lack a unifying understanding of how prokaryotic communities and biogeographic patterns are affected by large-scale current systems in distinct ocean basins and how they are globally shaped in line with ecological mechanisms. Here we show that prokaryotic communities in the epipelagic Pacific and Atlantic Ocean, in the southern Indian Ocean, and the Mediterranean Sea are composed of modules of co-occurring taxa with similar environmental preferences. The relative partitioning of these modules varies along latitudinal and longitudinal gradients and are related to different hydrographic and biotic conditions. Homogeneous selection and dispersal limitation were identified as the major ecological mechanisms shaping these communities and their free-living (FL) and particle-associated (PA) fractions. Large-scale current systems govern the dispersal of prokaryotic modules leading to the highest diversity near subtropical fronts.

Beschreibung: This data files contains trajectories of 14 surface drifters deployed on 21st October 2018 in the southern North Sea. The specifications of the drifters are published in (Meyerjürgens et al. 2019).