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Abstract:

Asimple model has the potential to resolve the long-running debate amongst oceanographers over whether nitrogen or phosphorus exerts overall control on oceanic primary production. A representation of the competition between nitrogen-®xing and other phytoplankton is inserted into a two-box global model of the oceanic nitrogen and phosphorus cycles. Homeostatic regulation of both nitrate and phosphate concentrations results, with surface waters more de®cient in nitrate than phosphate in the steady state, but with external phosphate inputs controlling longer-term primary production in the global ocean.