Seasonal and daily patterns in known dissolved metabolites in the northwestern Sargasso Sea

Abstract

Organic carbon in seawater plays a significant role in the global carbon cycle. The concentration and composition of dissolved organic carbon, operationally defined in this project as organic carbon that passes through a 0.2 {micro}m filter, reflect the activity of the biological community and chemical reactions that occur in seawater. From 2016 to 2019, we repeatedly sampled the oligotrophic northwest Sargasso Sea in the vicinity of the Bermuda Atlantic Time-series Study site (BATS) to quantitatively follow known compounds within the pool of dissolved organic matter in the upper 1000 meters of the water column. Dissolved metabolite concentrations revealed patterns with depth and time with most metabolites showing surface enrichment and lower concentrations with increasing depth. Select metabolites displayed seasonal patterns throughout the year, and this seasonality was repeated in each of the years sampled. Concentrations of vitamins, including pantothenic acid (vitamin B5) and riboflavin (vitamin B2), increased annually during winter periods when mixed layer depths were deepest. During diel sampling, light-sensitive riboflavin decreased significantly during daylight hours. Metabolite concentrations over time at BATS showed less variability compared to a previous sample set collected over a broad latitudinal range in the western Atlantic Ocean. The metabolites examined in this study are all components of central carbon metabolism. By examining these metabolites at finer resolution and in a relatively long time series, we have insights into microbial biogeochemical activity, data which are fundamental to understanding the chemical response of marine systems to future changes in climate.