A potential nitrogen sink discovered in the oxygenated Chukchi Shelf waters of the Arctic

Abstract

The western Arctic Shelf has long been considered as an important sink of nitrogen because high primary productivity of the shelf water fuels active denitrification within the sediments, which has been recognized to account for all the nitrogen (N) removal of the Pacific water inflow. However, potentially high denitrifying activity was discovered within the oxygenated Chukchi Shelf water during our summer expedition. Based on ¹⁵N-isotope pairing incubations, we estimated denitrification rates ranging from 1.8?±?0.4 to 75.9?±?8.7?nmol?N₂ L^?1?h^?1. We find that the spatial pattern of denitrifying activity follows well with primary productivity, which supplies plentiful fresh organic matter, and there was a strong correlation between integrated denitrification and integrated primary productivity. Considering the active hydrodynamics over the Chukchi Shelf during summer, resuspension of benthic sediment coupled with particle-associated bacteria induces an active denitrification process in the oxic water column. We further extrapolate to the whole Chukchi Shelf and estimate an N removal flux from this cold Arctic shelf water to be 12.2 Tg-N?year^?1, which compensates for the difference between sediment cores incubation (~?3 Tg-N?year^?1) and geochemical estimation based on N deficit relative to phosphorous (~?16 Tg-N?year^?1). We infer that dynamic sediment resuspension combined with high biological productivity stimulates intensive denitrification in the water column, potentially creating a nitrogen sink over the shallow Arctic shelves that have previously been unrecognized.