Flux data of zooplankton fecal pellets and particulate organic carbon of time-series sediment trap samples during 2023-2024 at Mooring TJ-A1B in the northern South China Sea

DOI

This dataset includes total mass flux (mg m-2 d-1), particulate organic carbon (POC) content (%), POC flux (mg C m-2 d-1), fecal pellet numerical flux (pellets m-2 d-1), and fecal pellet carbon (FPC) flux (mg C m-2 d-1) of time-series sediment trap samples at 500 m and 1970 m water depth of the mooring TJ-A1B in the northern South China Sea from August 2023 to June 2024. A total of 42 samples were obtained (21 samples from each water depth) for this dataset. Total mass flux of sediment trap samples was derived when the dry weight (mg) was divided by the collecting area (0.5 m2) and collecting time (15 days). POC content of sediment trap samples was measured by a Cario EL Cube elemental analyzer at the Third Institute of Oceanography, Ministry of Natural Resources, with a precision of better than ±0.02% (SD, 1σ; n = 2). POC flux was calculated by the product of the total mass flux and POC content. Zooplankton fecal pellets in the sinking particles were observed under a Zeiss Stemi 508 stereomicroscope coupled to a Zeiss Axiocam 305 digital camera at the State Key Laboratory of Marine Geology, Tongji University. Fecal pellets were identified, counted, and measured according to four shapes: ellipsoidal, cylindrical, spherical, and amorphous, and each shape was counted and measured separately using the Fiji software. The biovolumes of the first three fecal pellet shapes were calculated from the formulas for an ellipsoid, cylinder, and sphere, while the biovolume of amorphous fecal pellets was estimated through best-fit ellipsoid calculations. The biovolume-carbon content conversion factor used is 0.036 mg C mm-3 for all pellets. Fecal pellet numerical and carbon fluxes were obtained when the pellet number and carbon content were divided by the collecting area (0.5 m2) and collecting time (15 days).

Identifier
DOI https://doi.pangaea.de/10.1594/PANGAEA.984876
Related Identifier IsSupplementTo https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-20-5109-2023
Metadata Access https://ws.pangaea.de/oai/provider?verb=GetRecord&metadataPrefix=datacite4&identifier=oai:pangaea.de:doi:10.1594/PANGAEA.984876
Provenance
Creator Wang, Luyang; Liu, Zhifei; Cao, Junyuan; Lin, Baozhi ORCID logo; Zhao, Yulong ORCID logo
Publisher PANGAEA
Publication Year 2025
Funding Reference National Natural Science Foundation of China https://doi.org/10.13039/501100001809 Crossref Funder ID 42130407 Mooring observation of deep-sea sediment transport processes in the southern South China Sea and their effects on ocean carbon cycling; National Natural Science Foundation of China https://doi.org/10.13039/501100001809 Crossref Funder ID 42188102
Rights Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International; Data access is restricted (moratorium, sensitive data, license constraints); https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
OpenAccess false
Representation
Resource Type Dataset
Format text/tab-separated-values
Size 924 data points
Discipline Earth System Research
Spatial Coverage (117.387 LON, 20.065 LAT); Northern South China Sea