2024 Volume 80 Issue 17 Article ID: 24-17240
In coastal areas, organic matter (biogenic organic matter) produced and decomposed by plants, benthic animals and other organisms (biological activity) is deposited as bottom sediment. The elemental composition of organic matter in bottom sediments varies in a complex manner depending on biological activity, and understanding this variation may lead to the estimation of biological habitats. In this paper, changes in carbon and nitrogen composition (C/N ratio changes) due to biological activity were investigated based on redfield ratios. Bayesian inference machine learning was used to estimate C/N >12 in biologically active sites (where nutrient uptake by organisms is predominant) and C/N <8 in sites where undecomposed sediments (organic matter immediately after inanimate matter has been converted by mortality, excretion, etc.) accumulate. The results of this study show that the C/N ratio distribution of the coastal sediments can be used to evaluate the ecosystem in small areas of the coastal zone with different flow fields, and to identify areas of accumulation of undecomposed sediments and areas of high biological activity.
