Table of Contents

• Coverage
• Dataset Description
  • Methods & Sampling
  • Data Processing Description
• Data Files
• Related Publications
• Parameters
• Instruments
• Deployments
• Project Information
• Funding

This dataset includes nutrients from 2014 and 2015 experiments using Saharan source material and water from the lower Florida Keys to create microcosms for natural seawater communities. For full details, see Westrich et al (2016) PNAS, DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1518080113.

Samples were collected offshore from Alligator Reef (2014) and Looe Key Reef (2015). The experimental treatments included additions of dust and iron in 2014 with a control of acidified water. In 2015, treatments included additions of dust from Barbados, iron, nitrates, phosphates, and carbon with controls of acidified water and leachate.

Nutrients data went through internal lab QAQC process. BDL means below detection limit.  The method detection limit (MDL) was determined using 9 samples on two different runs and correct student-T value.

BCO-DMO Processing Notes:
- added conventional header with dataset name, PI name, version date
- modified parameter names to conform with BCO-DMO naming conventions
- nd (no data) was entered into all blank cells
- reduced number of significant digits of Vibrio and nutrient values to 2 digits to right of decimal and lat/lon to 5 digits.
- re-formatted date from m/d/yyyy to yyyy-mm-dd
- replaced spaces with underscores

Description from NSF award abstract:
Dust and mineral aerosols are a significant source of micro and macronutrients to oligotrophic ocean surface waters. Evidence is growing that heterotrophic microbes may play key roles in processing deposited minerals and nutrients. Yet it is not known which components of dust stimulate the heterotrophic bacteria, which cellular mechanisms are responsible for the utilization of those components and how the activity of these bacteria affect the availability and utilization of dust-derived minerals and nutrients by marine autotrophs. Knowledge of these factors is key to understanding how dust deposition impacts carbon cycles and for predicting the response of tropical oceans to future changes in the frequency and intensity of dust deposition events. The objective of this project is to examine the specific effects of aeolian dust on heterotrophic microbes in a tropical marine system under controlled conditions. The central hypothesis is that in oligotrophic tropical systems numerically minor opportunistic bacteria are the first responders to influx of dust constituents and respond primarily by rapidly accessing soluble trace metals and limiting nutrients that are deposited with Saharan dust. The project will focus on two specific aims: 1) Quantify changes in community structure, composition and transcriptional activity among marine microbial populations upon exposure to dust, and 2) Identify key components in Saharan dust aerosols that stimulate or repress growth and/or activity in Vibrio, a model opportunistic marine heterotrophic group. The study will use a series of controlled experiments designed to identify and quantify heterotrophic microbial response to dust deposition events using both natural communities and model bacteria (Vibrio) through metagenomics, transcriptomics and atmospheric and marine biogeochemical techniques. This innovative approach will identify the most critical (reactive) components leached from dust aerosols on the microbial community as well as elucidate potential mechanisms of response.

There is great interest in the biological response to dust aerosols given its potentially large influence on biogeochemical cycling, but there has been relatively little work that has addressed the mechanisms of response (especially among the heterotrophic microbial fraction) or identified the relative importance of specific constituents of dust aerosols. A detailed framework for microbial response (focusing on opportunistic heterotrophs) will facilitate efforts to link autotrophic and heterotrophic processing. This contribution is significant because it will provide one of the first end-to-end (chemistry to physiology to ecology) mechanistic pathways for marine biological response to desert dust aerosols.