During the first year of this project, laboratory experiments were coupled with two field samplings; the first involved the temperate ecosystem of the Chesapeake Bay in March 2005, and the second involved the tropical ecosystem offshore of Oahu. In general, the study of the rates of abiotic transformation of NEC (Task 1) and photolytic degradation (Task 2) took place in the laboratory, while the study of the degradation by microalgae ...