The effect of water transport on nitrogen flow through a kelp-bed community

Abstract

A simulation model is used to investigate possible ecological effects of up- and downwelling on nitrogen flows through a kelp-bed food web off the Cape Peninsula, South Africa. The model depicts the flow of nitrogen, which is often limiting in marine ecosystems, from kelps, other macrophytes and phytoplankton, through filter-feeders to carnivores, with a feedback loop via faeces and bacteria to detritus and filter-feeders. When modelled as a closed system, bacteria associated with detritus and animal faeces form a large component of the particulate nitrogen available to filter-feeders, and the faeces feedback loop dominates nitrogen flow. When measured rates of water transport are incorporated into the model, bacteria have little opportunity to accumulate before being transported out of the system. Animal faeces and kelp detritus are the dominant filter-feeder food components under upwelling conditions, whereas phytoplankton is the major contributor to particulate organic nitrogen under downwelling conditions. When realistic pulses of upwelling/downwelling derived from wind indices are used as model input, filter-feeders are shown to decline during the summer upwelling season when much potential food is advected out of the system, and they increase during the winter when downwelling conditions are more prevalent, bringing in nitrogen-rich phytoplankton from the blooms developing offshore.