Flux of biogenic carbon in oceans:size-dependent regulation by pelagic food webs

A central topic of modern biological oceanography is the flux of biogenic carbon (BC) towards large metazoans (i.e. renewable resources) and into deep waters (i.e. carbon sequestration, which may mitigate climate change). Two relevant characteristics of marine pelagic food webs are the turnover time of BC (r) and the size ratio of consumers to their food particles (5). Based on an extensive review of the literature, the present paper develops empirical equations to quantify the minimum turnover time ( T ~, )