TY - JOUR
T1 - Isotopic composition of carbonate-bound organic nitrogen in deep-sea scleractinian corals
T2 - A new window into past biogeochemical change
AU - Wang, Xingchen T.
AU - Prokopenko, Maria G.
AU - Sigman, Daniel Mikhail
AU - Adkins, Jess F.
AU - Robinson, Laura F.
AU - Ren, Haojia
AU - Oleynik, Sergey
AU - Williams, Branwen
AU - Haug, Gerald H.
N1 - Funding Information:
We thank Stephen D. Cairns (Smithsonian Institution National Museum of Natural History) and Ewann A. Bertson (NOAA) for providing D. dianthus samples and Eric D. Galbraith for providing the complete NICOPP data set. We also thank two anonymous reviewers for providing insightful comments. This work is supported by NSF grant OCE-1234664 to M.G.P. and B.W., the Grand Challenges Program of Princeton University , the Tuttle Fund of the Department of Geosciences at Princeton University, European Research Council , Marie Curie Reintegration Grant , and The Leverhulme Trust .
PY - 2014/8/15
Y1 - 2014/8/15
N2 - Over the last two decades, the skeletal remains of deep-sea corals have arisen as a geochemical archive of Pleistocene oceanographic change. Here we report the exploration of the isotopic composition of the carbonate-bound organic nitrogen (hereafter, CB-δ15N) in the deep-sea scleractinian coral Desmophyllum dianthus as a possible tool for reconstructing past changes in the ocean nitrogen cycle. The measurement protocol is adapted from a high-sensitivity method for foraminifera shell-bound δ15N. We explored the variability of CB-δ15N within specimens, among corals collected at different depths in a given ocean region, and among different ocean regions. Modern D. dianthus CB-δ15N is strongly correlated with the δ15N of N export as estimated from sediment traps, shallow subsurface nitrate, and surface sediments, suggesting that CB-δ15N is a reliable proxy for δ15N of N export. D. dianthus CB-δ15N is consistently 8-9‰ higher than δ15N of N export, indicating that D. dianthus acquires its nutrition primarily from suspended particulate organic matter (POM) that derives from sinking POM, not directly from sinking POM.
AB - Over the last two decades, the skeletal remains of deep-sea corals have arisen as a geochemical archive of Pleistocene oceanographic change. Here we report the exploration of the isotopic composition of the carbonate-bound organic nitrogen (hereafter, CB-δ15N) in the deep-sea scleractinian coral Desmophyllum dianthus as a possible tool for reconstructing past changes in the ocean nitrogen cycle. The measurement protocol is adapted from a high-sensitivity method for foraminifera shell-bound δ15N. We explored the variability of CB-δ15N within specimens, among corals collected at different depths in a given ocean region, and among different ocean regions. Modern D. dianthus CB-δ15N is strongly correlated with the δ15N of N export as estimated from sediment traps, shallow subsurface nitrate, and surface sediments, suggesting that CB-δ15N is a reliable proxy for δ15N of N export. D. dianthus CB-δ15N is consistently 8-9‰ higher than δ15N of N export, indicating that D. dianthus acquires its nutrition primarily from suspended particulate organic matter (POM) that derives from sinking POM, not directly from sinking POM.
KW - Deep-sea scleractinian corals
KW - Nitrogen isotopes
KW - Ocean nitrogen cycle
KW - Paleoceanography
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U2 - 10.1016/j.epsl.2014.05.048
DO - 10.1016/j.epsl.2014.05.048
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:84902256894
VL - 400
SP - 243
EP - 250
JO - Earth and Planetary Science Letters
JF - Earth and Planetary Science Letters
SN - 0012-821X
ER -