Gruber, Renee, Lowe, Ryan J, and Falter, James L (2017) Metabolism of a tide-dominated reef platform subject to extreme diel temperature and oxygen variations. Limnology and Oceanography, 62 (4). pp. 1701-1717.

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Abstract

Benthic dissolved oxygen fluxes were measured on the reef flat of Tallon Island, an intertidal reef platform in the Kimberley region of northwestern Australia, for periods of 2 weeks in the wet and dry seasons. This reef flat is strongly tidally forced by semidiurnal tides (spring range > 8 m) and experiences highly asymmetric water level variability, with ebb durations lasting ∼10 h; this results in diel variations in water temperature and dissolved oxygen (DO) concentration (up to ∼11°C and 440 μM, respectively) that are among the most extreme recorded for reefs worldwide. Given the consistent tidal flow patterns, a one-dimensional control volume approach was used to make continuous Eulerian measurements of net production and community respiration from observed changes in DO within two zones: an inner zone dominated by seagrass and an outer zone dominated by macroalgae. Community respiration (R) was controlled primarily by DO concentration; however, fluxes approached the limits of DO mass transfer at low flow speeds. Estimates of gross primary production (P) suggested that reef communities were able to fix carbon at rates comparable to other tropical seagrass and mixed reef flat communities despite short-term (∼hours) extremes in light (up to 1800 μmol m−2 s−1) and temperature (> 35°C). Daily net community production fluctuated between net autotrophy and heterotrophy over a ∼15 d period depending on the phase difference between the solar and tidal cycles but was nonetheless metabolically balanced on time scales greater than weeks (P : R = 1.0–1.1).

Item ID:	92645
Item Type:	Article (Refereed Research - C1)
ISSN:	1939-5590
Copyright Information:	© 2017 Association for the Sciences of Limnology and Oceanography.
Funders:	Australian Research Council (ARC)
Projects and Grants:	ARC FT110100201, ARC CE140100020
Date Deposited:	27 Aug 2026 06:52
FoR Codes:	37 EARTH SCIENCES > 3708 Oceanography > 370801 Biological oceanography @ 50% 37 EARTH SCIENCES > 3708 Oceanography > 370802 Chemical oceanography @ 50%
SEO Codes:	28 EXPANDING KNOWLEDGE > 2801 Expanding knowledge > 280107 Expanding knowledge in the earth sciences @ 100%
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