Year of Publication
2019

Journal

Continental Shelf Research
Volume
178
Date Published
01/05/2019
Number of Pages
59-67
DOI
10.1016/j.csr.2019.03.011
HCERES category
ACL - Articles in international or national peer-reviewed journals indexed by HCERES or in international databases
Abstract

<p>Suspended particulate matter (SPM) is a key component of coastal food webs and a key variable of nutrient budgets. Understanding its variability across short time scales in estuaries may help ecologists understand seasonal and diurnal migration of estuarine organisms, and answer how their nutritional requirements are fulfilled. It may also inform biogeochemists regarding the factors that influence import and export of nutrients between terrestrial and coastal ecosystems. This study aimed to link the dynamics of fatty acids, stable isotopes (δ13C and δ15N) and C/N ratios of SPM, revealing organic matter quality, to rapidly varying factors (SPM concentration, salinity and presence of daylight) and comparing this variability to the seasonal variation induced by the alternation of dry and wet seasons in the studied region. Our results revealed that these rapidly varying factors had a strong influence on the bacterial and the phytoplanktonic compartments of SPM. They suggest that tidally resuspended particles are the site of intense heterotrophic activity and that estuarine phytoplankton store lipids during the daytime up to substantially modifying SPM quality. Our study also shows higher freshness of SPM during the wet season. We expect this study to raise the interest of both biologists and biogeochemists to introduce daily variability of SPM in food webs and nutrient budgets modelling.</p>