The biogeochemical effect of seaweeds upon close-to natural concentrations of dissolved iodate and iodide in seawater – Preliminary study with Laminaria digitata and Fucus serratus |
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| Authors: | Victor W Truesdale |
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| Institution: | School of Life Sciences, Oxford Brookes University, Gipsy Lane, Headington, Oxford OX3 0BP, UK |
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| Abstract: | Toward assessing the biogeochemical significance of seaweeds in relation to dissolved iodine in seawater, the effect of whole seaweeds (Laminaria digitata and Fucus serratus) upon iodide and iodate, at essentially natural concentrations, has been studied. The weeds were carefully removed from the sub-littoral zone of the Menai Straits and exposed to iodide and iodate at their natural temperature (6 °C), but under continuous illumination. Laminaria digitata was found to decrease the concentration of iodate with an exponential rate constant of 0.008–0.24 h−1. This is a newly discovered process which, if substantiated, will require an entirely new mechanism. Generally, apparent iodide concentration increased except in a run with seawater augmented with iodide, where it first decreased. The rate constant for loss of iodide was 0.014–0.16 h−1. Meanwhile, F. serratus was found not to decrease iodate concentrations, as did L. digitata. Indeed, after ∼30 h iodate concentrations increased, suggesting that the weed may take in iodide before oxidising and releasing it. If substantiated, this finding may offer a way into one of the most elusive of processes within the iodine cycle – iodide oxidation. With both seaweeds sustained long-term increases of apparent iodide concentration are most easily explained as a secretion by the weeds of organic matter which is capable of reducing the Ce(IV) reagent used in determination of total iodine. Modelling of the catalytic method used is provided to support this contention. The possibility of developing this to measure the strain that seaweeds endure in this kind of biogeochemical flux experiment is discussed. A Chemical Oxygen Demand type of approach is applied using Ce(IV) as oxidant. The results of the iodine experiments are contrasted with the several investigations of 131I interaction with seaweeds, which have routinely used discs of weed cut from the frond. It is argued that experiments conducted with stable iodine may measure a different variable to that measured in radio-iodine experiments. |
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| Keywords: | iodide iodate iodine seaweeds Laminaria sp Fucus sp seawater |
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