Pigment destruction by Calanus pacificus: impact on the estimation of water column fluxes

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Abstract
Measurements of gut pigment made prior to fecal pellet production in Calanus pacificus females and CV copepodites suggest that (i) chlorophyll a and/or its pheopigment derivatives are degraded into molecules that are not detectable by the standard fluorometric technique; and (ii) the percentage of ingested chlorophyll a which degrades into fluorometrically undetected molecules is not constant. Thus, measurements of chlorophyll and pheopigment a in the guts of zooplankton can only yield minimum estimates of in situ grazing rates. Estimates of the vertical flux of primary particulates based on chlorophyll and pheopigment a budgets may also be underestimated.

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