Editors’ Highlights are summaries of recent papers by AGU’s journal editors.
Source: AGU Advances
The relationship between phytoplankton production and dissolved iron affects the net annual air-sea exchange of carbon dioxide and impacts the ability of the subantarctic Southern Ocean to act as a carbon sink.
Traill et al. [2025] combine 27 years of monitoring data from a time series site in the subantarctic Southern Ocean south of Australia with ship-based observations to develop a composite seasonal cycle of productivity and dissolved iron. The seasonal cycle shows three phases that are defined by controls on production by light and multiple iron sources (Phase 1), iron limitation (Phase 2), and biomass decline from a shift to net heterotrophy and recycled nutrients (Phase 3). The seasonal cycle of coupling between dissolved iron and productivity provides validation of ocean biogeochemical models and informs understanding of variability associated with changing Southern Ocean iron supply mechanisms.
Citation: Traill, C. D., Rohr, T., Shadwick, E., Schallenberg, C., Ellwood, M., & Bowie, A. (2025). Coupling between the subantarctic seasonal iron cycle and productivity at the Southern Ocean Time Series (SOTS). AGU Advances, 6, e2024AV001599. https://doi.org/10.1029/2024AV001599
—Eileen Hofmann, Editor, AGU Advances