Articles | Volume 12, issue 16
https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-12-4979-2015
https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-12-4979-2015
Research article
 | 
21 Aug 2015
Research article |  | 21 Aug 2015

Assessing the potential of amino acid 13C patterns as a carbon source tracer in marine sediments: effects of algal growth conditions and sedimentary diagenesis

T. Larsen, L. T. Bach, R. Salvatteci, Y. V. Wang, N. Andersen, M. Ventura, and M. D. McCarthy

Download

Interactive discussion

Status: closed
Status: closed
AC: Author comment | RC: Referee comment | SC: Short comment | EC: Editor comment
Printer-friendly Version - Printer-friendly version Supplement - Supplement

Peer-review completion

AR: Author's response | RR: Referee report | ED: Editor decision
AR by Thomas Larsen on behalf of the Authors (16 Jun 2015)  Author's response
ED: Publish subject to minor revisions (Editor review) (07 Jul 2015) by Véronique Garçon
AR by Anna Wenzel on behalf of the Authors (15 Jul 2015)  Author's response    Manuscript
ED: Publish as is (05 Aug 2015) by Véronique Garçon
Download
Short summary
A tiny fraction of marine algae escapes decomposition and is buried in sediments. Since tools are needed to track the fate of algal organic carbon, we tested whether naturally occurring isotope variability among amino acids from algae and bacteria can be used as source diagnostic fingerprints. We found that isotope fingerprints track algal amino acid sources with high fidelity across different growth conditions, and that the fingerprints can be used to quantify bacterial amino acids in sediment.
Altmetrics
Final-revised paper
Preprint