Dust Storms In Sahara Desert Sustain Life In Atlantic Ocean
Baku, October 6 (AZERTAC). Research at the University of Liverpool has found how Saharan dust storms help sustain life over extensive regions of the North Atlantic Ocean.
Working aboard research vessels in the Atlantic, scientists mapped the distribution of nutrients including phosphorus and nitrogen and investigated how organisms such as phytoplankton are sustained in areas with low nutrient levels.
They found that plants are able to grow in these regions because they are able to take advantage of iron minerals in Saharan dust storms. This allows them to use organic or `recycled` material from dead or decaying plants when nutrients such as phosphorus - an essential component of DNA - in the ocean are low.
Professor George Wolff, from the University`s Department of Earth and Ocean Sciences, explains: “We found that cyan bacteria - a type of ancient phytoplankton - are significant to the understanding of how ocean deserts can support plant growth. Cyan bacteria need nitrogen, phosphorus and iron in order to grow. They get nitrogen from the atmosphere, but phosphorus is a highly reactive chemical that is scarce in sea water and is not found in the Earth`s atmosphere. Iron is present only in tiny amounts in sea water, even though it is one of the most abundant elements on earth.
“Our findings suggest that Saharan dust storms are largely responsible for the significant difference between the numbers of cyan bacteria in the North and South Atlantic. The dust fertilizes the North Atlantic and allows phytoplankton to use organic phosphorus, but it doesn`t reach the southern regions and so without enough iron, phytoplankton are unable to use the organic material and don`t grow as successfully.”
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