he difference in sampled and predicted TAN concentration ascalculated in the mass balance suggests an additional source of Nto the water column. If these fluxes were indeed form the sedi-ment, this alludes to increased loading of organic material to thebenthos, potentially in the form of oyster feces and pseudofeces.Newell et al. (2002) simulated feces and pseudofeces deposition tostudy influences on sediment N dynamics. They found that underincreased loading regimes, there was a higher rate of ammoniumreleased. Similarly, a field study at a restored oyster reef conductedless than 15 miles upstream demonstrated high sediment ammoniafluxes (Kellogg et al., 2013), that would more than account for thedifference seen in the model and field samples. The gap betweenTAN increase by excretion compared to total flux from upstreamto downstream also fits with past studies in South Carolina thatdemonstrated excretion to be an order of magnitude below totalammonium flux (Dame et al., 1992), and making up only 40% of thetotal flux in a study in France (Boucher and Boucher-Rodoni, 1988).These results demonstrate that the farm investigated in this studyfunctions similarly to natural and restored reefs in terms of total Nfluxes from upstream to downstream of the facility.