This data is part of the BMBF project CUSCO (Coastal Upwelling Systems in a Changing Ocean). Here we report particulate organic matter concentrations collected during a 35-day experiment where we enclosed natural plankton communities in in-situ mesocosms off Peru. The experiment investigated the interactive effects of light and upwelling on the Humboldt upwelling ecosystem by mimicking a gradient of upwelling intensities (0%, 15%, 30%, 45% and 60%) under summer-time high light and winter-time low light. Integrated seawater samples from a depth between 0 and 10m were collected using a 5L Integrating Water sampler (IWS; Hydro-Bios, Kiel). Samples (150-1000 ml) were filtered onto a 0.7 µm pre-combusted glass-fiber filters (GFF, Whatman). The filters were acidified and then dried in the oven at 60 °C for 24 hours and total particulate carbon (TPC), particulate organic carbon (POC) and nitrogen (PON) content were measured using a CN analyzer (Euro EA3000, HEKAtech GmbH, Wegberg, Germany). POP filters were autoclaved for 30 min in 100 mL Schott Duran glass bottles using an oxidizing decomposition solution (Merck, catalogue no. 112936) to convert organic phosphate to orthophosphate. Phosphate concentrations were determined spectrophotometrically following Hansen and Koroleff (1999; doi:10.1002/9783527613984.ch10).

Mesocosm 10 describes the control sample from the Pacificvalues marked with ? are questionable