Scaling the metabolic balance of the oceans.

ABSTRACT: Oceanic communities are sources or sinks of CO2, depending on the balance between primary production and community respiration. The prediction of how global climate change will modify this metabolic balance of the oceans is limited by the lack of a comprehensive underlying theory. Here, we show that the balance between production and respiration is profoundly affected by environmental temperature. We extend the general metabolic theory of ecology to the production and respiration of oceanic communities and show that ecosystem rates can be reliably scaled from theoretical knowledge of organism physiology and measurement of population abundance. Our theory predicts that the differential temperature-dependence of respiration and photosynthesis at the organism level determines the response of

SUBMITTER: Lopez-Urrutia A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC1482648 | biostudies-literature | 2006 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature