Role of suspension feeders in antarctic pelagic-benthic coupling: Trophic ecology and potential carbon sinks under climate change

15 pages, 7 figures, 5 tables, supplementary data https://doi.org/10.1016/j.marenvres.2019.104790

Sea-ice and coastal glacier loss in the Western Antarctic Peninsula open new ice-free areas. They allowing primary production and providing new seabed for colonisation, both acting as a negative feedback of climate change. However, the injection of sediment-laden runoff from the melting of land-terminating glaciers may reduce this feedback. Changes in particulate matter will affect nutrition and excretion (faeces stoichiometry and properties) of suspension feeders, reshaping coastal carbon dynamics and pelagic-benthic coupling. Absorption efficiency and biodeposition of Euphausia superba and Cnemidocarpa verrucosa were quantified for different food treatments and varying sediment concentrations. Both species showed high overall absorption efficiency for free-sediment diets, but were negatively affected by sediment addition. High sediment conditions increased krill biodeposition, while it decreased in ascidians. Energy balance estimation indicated high carbon sink potential in ascidians, but it is modulated by food characteristics and negatively affected by sediment inputs in the water column

This project benefited from the financial support of the Total Foundation (ECLIPSE Project), Argentinean funds through PICT-Raíces 2011–1320 to IS, PICTO-DNA Nº 119. It has been additionally supported by the European Commision under the 7th Framework Programme through the Action – IMCONet (FP7 IRSES, action no. 319718). It is a contribution to the Coastal Ecology Monitoring programme of Instituto Antártico Argentino/Dirección Nacional del Antártico in Carlini Station and the research program PACES II (topic 1, work package 5) of the Alfred Wegener Institute. GA and TM received a PhD scholarship (CONICET) at the Universidad Nacional de Córdoba

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