Southeastern U.S.A. continental shelf respiratory rates revisited

6 pages, 1 figure, 1 table.Respiratory rates on the U. S. southeastern\udcontinental shelf have been estimated several times by different investigators, most recently by Jiang et al.\ud(Biogeochemistry 98:101–113, 2010) who report lower mean rates thanwere found in earlier work and attribute the differences to analytical error in all methods used in\udearlier studies. The differences are, instead, attributable to the differences in the geographical scope of the studies. The lower estimates of regional organic carbon\udflux of Jiang et al. (Biogeochemistry 98:101–113, 2010) are a consequence of their extrapolation of data from a small portion of the shelf to the entire South Atlantic\udBight. This comment examines the methodologies used as well as the variability of respiratory rates in this\udregion over space and timeJ. E. Sheldon and W. M. Sheldon, Jr.\udwere supported by the Georgia Coastal Ecosystems Long-Term Ecological Research program (National Science Foundation award number 0620959).Peer reviewe