Test of Redfield’s model for oxygen-nutrient relationships using regression analysis1

Multiple regression analysis was applied to oxygen, phosphate, and nitrate data from stations in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. The 95 % confidence intervals for AO, : APO, and AO, : A NO3 ratios were consistent with Redfield’s model. Thus, the variation of OS-PO4 and OrNO, slopes with depth, latitude, and time is due to mixing between diffcr-ent water types with different preformed portions of oxygen, phosphate, and nitrate. Redfield (1934, 1942; Redfield et al. 1963) proposed a relation between the con-centrations of dissolved oxygen, carbon di-oxide, nitrate, and phosphate in seawater based on the average chemical composition of plankton ( Fleming 1941). This relation predicts that the ratio of oxygen consump-tion to nutrient production by biological oxidation is constant and can be repre-sented by the equation ( CI-120) 106 ( NH3) &13PO4 + 138 02