engleski

Perspetive of lipids as carbon carriers to deep ocean in global warming scenario

Global warming is and will reflect on marine ecosystem functioning and surely has consequences on the marine carbon cycle and carbon sequestration. In the increasingly warmer seas and oceans, phytoplankton, the primary producer, use carbon and nutrients to form important biomolecules, including lipids. To reveal the possible role of lipids for the carbon sequestration, which may influence the capability of oceans for climate change mitigation, due to their capacity to sequester carbon from the atmosphere, we started with investigation of the phytoplankton lipid production in the diatom Chaetoceros pseudocurvisetus cultures under controlled temperatures ranging from 10 to 30 C. Further, we characterized the distribution of lipids in the Northeast Atlantic, throughout the water column, down to the depths of 4800 m. We employed high resolution Fourier transform ion cyclotron resonance mass spectrometry (FT-ICR MS), high-performance liquid chromatography/electrospray ionization tandem mass spectrometry (HPLC/ESI - MS/MS) and Iatroscan thin–layer chromatography–flame ionization detection (TLC/FID) to provide qualitative and quantitative lipid characterization and to monitor lipid molecular changes. We found enhanced lipid production at higher temperatures for C. pseudocurvisetus cultures. Oceanic data suggest that lipid saturation affects the export of carbon from the atmosphere to the deep ocean. Details on the culturing and oceanic data will be discussed.

Lipids ; phytoplankton ; global warming

nije evidentirano