Microbial activity measured from water bottle samples in a cyclonic eddy during METEOR cruise M156, off Mauritania

Auto- and heterotrophic microbial activity (biomass production and respiration) were investigated in a cyclonic eddy that formed off Mauritania along the ∼ 900 km zonal corridor between Mauritania and the Cabo Verde islands in the eastern Tropical North Atlantic during the M156 cruise on the RV Meteor from July 3rd to August 1st 2019. The dataset includes measured and calculated data over the epipelagic layer (0-200 m depth) of 25 stations with 14 of them inside or in the vicinity of a cyclonic eddy. Temperature, salinity, and oxygen were obtained from a Seabird 911 plus CTD system equipped with two independently working sets of temperature–conductivity–oxygen. Seawater samples were collected using 10 L Niskin bottles attached to the CTD Rosette. Ammonium was analysed based on Solórzano (1969, https://doi.org/10.4319/lo.1969.14.5.0799) and nitrate, nitrite, phosphate and silicate were measured photometrically with continuous-flow analysis on an auto-analyser based on Hansen and Koroleff, (1999, https://doi.org/10.1002/9783527613984.ch10). To estimate the fraction of semi-labile dissolved organic carbon, we determined high-molecular-weight (>1 kDa) dissolved combined carbohydrates (dCCHO) based on Engel and Händel (2011, https://doi.org/10.1093/plankt/fbq122) and dissolved hydrolysable amino acids (dHAA) based on Lindroth and Mopper (1979, https://https://doi.org/10.1021/ac50047a019) and Dittmar et al, (2009). The analysis of DCCHO detected 11 monomers: and the dHAA analysis classified 13 monomers. The calculations for the carbon content of dCCHO and dHAA were based on carbon atoms contained in the identified monomers. The sum of dCCHO and dHAA carbon content is referred to as SL-DOC. Chlorophyll a was measured from photometric analysis based on Evans et al, (1987). Heterotrophic bacteria, photosynthetic bacteria (Prochlorococcus and Synechococcus), and autotrophic pico and nanoplankton (