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Reconciliation of the carbon budget in the ocean’s twilight zone

Overview of attention for article published in Nature, March 2014
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  • In the top 5% of all research outputs scored by Altmetric
  • High Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age (95th percentile)
  • Above-average Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age and source (51st percentile)

Citations

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568 Mendeley
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Title
Reconciliation of the carbon budget in the ocean’s twilight zone
Published in
Nature, March 2014
DOI 10.1038/nature13123
Pubmed ID
Authors

Sarah L. C. Giering, Richard Sanders, Richard S. Lampitt, Thomas R. Anderson, Christian Tamburini, Mehdi Boutrif, Mikhail V. Zubkov, Chris M. Marsay, Stephanie A. Henson, Kevin Saw, Kathryn Cook, Daniel J. Mayor

Abstract

Photosynthesis in the surface ocean produces approximately 100 gigatonnes of organic carbon per year, of which 5 to 15 per cent is exported to the deep ocean. The rate at which the sinking carbon is converted into carbon dioxide by heterotrophic organisms at depth is important in controlling oceanic carbon storage. It remains uncertain, however, to what extent surface ocean carbon supply meets the demand of water-column biota; the discrepancy between known carbon sources and sinks is as much as two orders of magnitude. Here we present field measurements, respiration rate estimates and a steady-state model that allow us to balance carbon sources and sinks to within observational uncertainties at the Porcupine Abyssal Plain site in the eastern North Atlantic Ocean. We find that prokaryotes are responsible for 70 to 92 per cent of the estimated remineralization in the twilight zone (depths of 50 to 1,000 metres) despite the fact that much of the organic carbon is exported in the form of large, fast-sinking particles accessible to larger zooplankton. We suggest that this occurs because zooplankton fragment and ingest half of the fast-sinking particles, of which more than 30 per cent may be released as suspended and slowly sinking matter, stimulating the deep-ocean microbial loop. The synergy between microbes and zooplankton in the twilight zone is important to our understanding of the processes controlling the oceanic carbon sink.

X Demographics

X Demographics

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Mendeley readers

Mendeley readers

The data shown below were compiled from readership statistics for 568 Mendeley readers of this research output. Click here to see the associated Mendeley record.

Geographical breakdown

Country Count As %
United States 7 1%
Canada 5 <1%
Germany 3 <1%
Spain 3 <1%
Brazil 2 <1%
Japan 2 <1%
Iceland 1 <1%
Argentina 1 <1%
Switzerland 1 <1%
Other 4 <1%
Unknown 539 95%

Demographic breakdown

Readers by professional status Count As %
Student > Ph. D. Student 132 23%
Researcher 126 22%
Student > Master 64 11%
Student > Bachelor 49 9%
Professor 31 5%
Other 91 16%
Unknown 75 13%
Readers by discipline Count As %
Environmental Science 137 24%
Earth and Planetary Sciences 135 24%
Agricultural and Biological Sciences 130 23%
Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology 15 3%
Engineering 8 1%
Other 35 6%
Unknown 108 19%
Attention Score in Context

Attention Score in Context

This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 41. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 07 September 2020.
All research outputs
#940,799
of 24,383,935 outputs
Outputs from Nature
#30,638
of 94,900 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#9,317
of 228,089 outputs
Outputs of similar age from Nature
#477
of 985 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 24,383,935 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done particularly well and is in the 96th percentile: it's in the top 5% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.
So far Altmetric has tracked 94,900 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 101.6. This one has gotten more attention than average, scoring higher than 67% of its peers.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 228,089 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 95% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 985 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has gotten more attention than average, scoring higher than 51% of its contemporaries.