Spatiotemporal distribution of dissolved acidic polysaccharides (dAPS) in a tidal estuary
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abstract
Concentrations of dissolved acidic polysaccharides (dAPS) were measured in an estuarine tidal creek in North Inlet (South Carolina) during June and August 2007. There was a predictable pattern of dAPS concentrations in Crab Haul Creek, with the highest concentrations of dAPS occurring at low tide (2490 300 g L-1 [mean SD] as gum xanthan equivalents). Suspended sediment load positively correlated with dAPS concentrations during a 12-h survey over a complete tidal cycle at a single location. There was a significant correlation between chlorophyll a and dAPS in the upper 5 mm of intertidal salt marsh sediments. High dAPS concentrations (3170-7820 mg m 2) in emersed intertidal sediment at low tide compared with depth-integrated water-column dAPS (100-370 mg m2) indicate that the sediment was potentially the major source of dAPS to the water column. Total dAPS in the water column overlying the 1.1 -km2 area of Crab Haul Creek basin varied between 109 7 to 406 225 kg (mean SD) as gum xanthan equivalents over a tidal cycle. Conservative estimate of dAPS export from North Inlet to the Atlantic Ocean as organic carbon was 5.00 108 g C during the summer, or 1.32 109 g C annually. The spatiotemporal distributions of dAPS indicate that they are a significant pool of organic carbon in estuaries. 2009, by the American Society of Limnology and Oceanography, Inc.