jiaying li1, zhifei liu1*, baozhi lin1, yulong zhao1, junyuan cao1, xiaodong zhang1, jingwen zhang1, chen ling1, pengfei ma1, and jiawang wu1
1 state key laboratory of marine geology, tongji university, shanghai 200092, china
abstract
particulate organic carbon (poc) export, which has been widely reported in different ocean regions. however, zooplankton fecal pellet in the tropical marginal sea and its contribution to the total poc flux has not been sufficiently investigated yet. here, for the first time we report zooplankton fecal pellet characteristics and depths. at 500 m and 2190 m, respectively, corresponding to average fecal pellet carbon (fpc) flux from 0.31 to 0.71 mg c m-2 d-1. both fecal pellet numerical and carbon fluxes were higher in winter, when the strong east asian winter monsoon winds and heavy rainfall promoted the marine primary production. suggested the in-situ repackaging of with higher values occurring during winter monsoon, at which time fecal pellets became a critical conveyor of carbon export to the deep sea.
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