Benthic fluxes of carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane (CH4) were evaluated in grass carp Ctenopharyngodon idella (G), silver carp Hypophthalmichthys molitrix (S), and bighead carp Aristichthys nobilis (B) polyculture systems, to which topmouth culter Erythroculter ilishaeformis (T), Pacific white shrimp Litopenaeus vannamei (P), or common carp Cyprinus carpio (C) were added. These systems, GSBT, G...

It has been previously proposed that alkalinity release from sediments can play an important role in the carbonate dynamics on continental shelves, lowering the pCO2 of seawater and hence increasing the CO2 uptake from the atmosphere. To test this hypothesis, sedimentary alkalinity generation was quantified within cohesive and permeable sediments across the North Sea during two cruises in Septe...

Rates of sediment community oxygen consumption determined in situ are compared to fluxes predicted from oxygen microelectrode gradients measured in cores from -3,750-m water depth in the eastern North Pacific. Oxygen concentrations decrease exponentially over > 1.5 cm and suggest that organic matter in the sediments is degraded most rapidly immediately below the sediment-water interface. Molecu...

Bottom trawling causes physical disturbance to sediments particularly in shelf areas. The disturbance due to trawling is most significant in deeper areas with softer sediments where levels of natural disturbance due to wave and tidal action are low. In heavily fished areas, trawls may impact the same area of seabed more than four times per year. A single pass of a beam trawl, the heaviest gear ...

Interfacial fluxes, that is, gas exchange at the water–atmosphere interface and benthic fluxes at the sediment–water interface, are often parameterized in terms of wind speed or turbulent friction velocity, with numerous empirical relationships obtained from individual experiments. The present study attempts to combine the general outcome of such experiments at both interfaces into a universal ...

Many sediment quality assessment frameworks incorporate contaminant bioavailability as a critical factor regulating toxicity in aquatic ecosystems. However, current approaches do not always adequately predict metal bioavailability to organisms living in the oxidized sediment surface layers. The deployment of the diffusive gradients in thin films (DGT) probes in sediments allows labile metals pr...

Benthic chambers were used to measure in situ fluxes of dissolved gases (N2, O2, and N2O) and inorganic nutrients (NO3 , NH4 , and PO4 3 ) in continental shelf sediments of the Mid-Atlantic Bight during spring through autumn (May– November). Denitrification was determined by the rate of increase in N2 relative to Ar, measured using membrane-inlet mass spectrometry. Although sediments were a sou...

As part of the 2002 Shelf-Basin Interactions (SBI) process study, measurements of the seasonal variation in the export flux of particulate organic carbon (POC) are reported for the upper waters of the Chukchi Sea. POC fluxes were quantified by determination of Th/U disequilibrium and POC/Th ratios in large ð453mmÞ aggregates collected using in situ pumps. Samples were collected at 35 stations o...