Biological Pump - Overview

Overview

The organic carbon that forms the biological pump is transported primarily by sinking particulate material, for example dead organisms (including algal mats) or faecal pellets. However, some carbon reaches the deep ocean as dissolved organic carbon (DOC) by physical transport processes such as downwelling rather than sinking.

Carbon reaching the deep ocean by these means is either organic carbon or particulate inorganic carbon such as calcium carbonate (CaCO₃). The former is a component of all organisms, the latter only of calcifying organisms, for example coccolithophores, foraminiferans or pteropods. In reference to the different use of these materials in organisms, the organic carbon portion of this transport is known as the soft tissues pump, while the inorganic carbon portion is known as the hard tissues pump.

In the case of organic material, remineralisation (or decomposition) processes such as bacterial respiration, return the organic carbon to dissolved carbon dioxide. Calcium carbonate dissolves at a rate dependent upon local carbonate chemistry. As these processes are generally slower than synthesis processes, and because the particulate material is sinking, the biological pump transports material from the surface of the ocean to its depths.

As the biological pump plays an important role in the Earth's carbon cycle, significant effort is spent quantifying its strength. However, because they occur as a result of poorly-constrained ecological interactions usually at depth, the processes that form the biological pump are difficult to measure. A common method is to estimate primary production fuelled by nitrate and ammonium as these nutrients have different sources that are related to the remineralisation of sinking material. From these it is possible to derive the so-called f-ratio, a proxy for the local strength of the biological pump. Applying the results of local studies to the global scale are complicated by the role the ocean's circulation plays in different ocean regions.

The biological pump has a physico-chemical counterpart known as the solubility pump. For an overview of both pumps, see Raven & Falkowski (1999).