Balanced plankton net community metabolism in the oligotrophic North Atlantic subtropical gyre from Lagrangian observations

Characterization of the microbial plankton metabolism in oligotrophic oceans is of relevance for the quantification of the global carbon balance; however whether the plankton community metabolism in oligotrophic gyres is net autotrophic or heterotrophic is still under debate. Discrepancies have been in part attributed to the difficulties of the standard snapshot estimations, based on in vitro measurements, to adequately represent the temporal scale of trophic processes. This work presents concurrent measurements of gross primary production and community respiration carried out in the North Atlantic Oligotrophic Gyre throughout two 7-day Lagrangian experiments that allowed us to investigate the effect of short term (daily) variability on the microbial metabolism quantification. Physicochemical and biological variables showed a low variability in each Lagrangian experiment and a balanced net plankton metabolism was found in 83% of the sampling days.

► Lagrangian sampling allows characterizing short time scale NCP variability in Open Ocean.
► Microbial plankton metabolism in the oligotrophic open ocean tends to be balanced.
► Calculation of confidence intervals is a useful tool for NCP variability analysis.