Impacts of biomass burning versus anthropogenic aerosol deposition on the surface layers in the central Adriatic Sea: A mesocosm study

Climate changes alter the atmospheric input of aerosol to the ocean, which in turn influence ocean productivity and carbon sequestration. To gain insight into the effects of atmospheric deposition (AD) on the ocean surface, it is necessary to consider the interfacial processes within the sea surface microlayer (SML), which governs all exchange processes between the ocean and the atmosphere. There are only a limited number of studies that distinguish between SML and the underlying water (ULW) when evaluating sea surface feedbacks to AD. The responses of neuston and plankton communities and changes in organic matter (OM) in SML relative to the ULW to additions of aerosol of anthropogenic and BB origin were studied during a 4-day mesocosm experiments in August 2020 at the central Adriatic area within BiREADI CSF IP-2018- 01-3105 and DAAD INSIST project. We demonstrate that aerosol additions differently affect SML and ULW by changing community structure and OM composition.