Featured
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News & Views |
Carbon dioxide loss from tropical soils increases on warming
Plots of tropical forest soils were warmed by 4 °C for two years to observe the effects on soil carbon emissions. The increase in efflux of carbon dioxide was larger than expected — a result with worrying implications for climate change.
- Eric A. Davidson
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Article |
Soil carbon loss by experimental warming in a tropical forest
When tropical forest soils are warmed in situ, they release more CO2 than predicted by theory, creating a potentially substantial positive feedback to climate change.
- Andrew T. Nottingham
- , Patrick Meir
- & Benjamin L. Turner
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News & Views |
New class of molecule targets proteins outside cells for degradation
Molecules have previously been made that induce protein destruction inside cells. A new class of molecule now induces the degradation of membrane and extracellular proteins — opening up avenues for drug discovery.
- Claire Whitworth
- & Alessio Ciulli
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Article |
Bacterial chemolithoautotrophy via manganese oxidation
A co-culture of two newly identified microorganisms—‘Candidatus Manganitrophus noduliformans’ and Ramlibacter lithotrophicus—exhibits exponential growth that is dependent on manganese(II) oxidation, demonstrating the viability of this metabolism for supporting life.
- Hang Yu
- & Jared R. Leadbetter
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News & Views |
Removal of atmospheric CO2 by rock weathering holds promise for mitigating climate change
Large-scale removal of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere might be achieved through enhanced rock weathering. It now seems that this approach is as promising as other strategies, in terms of cost and CO2-removal potential.
- Johannes Lehmann
- & Angela Possinger
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Article |
Potential for large-scale CO2 removal via enhanced rock weathering with croplands
A detailed assessment of the techno-economic potential of enhanced rock weathering on croplands identifies national CO2 removal potentials, costs and engineering challenges if it were to be scaled up to help meet ambitious global CO2 removal targets.
- David J. Beerling
- , Euripides P. Kantzas
- & Steven A. Banwart
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Article |
Emergent constraint on Arctic Ocean acidification in the twenty-first century
Sea surface density observations in the Arctic Ocean reveal a relationship between the present-day surface water density and the anthropogenic carbon inventory and coincident acidification, suggesting that recent acidification projections are underestimates.
- Jens Terhaar
- , Lester Kwiatkowski
- & Laurent Bopp
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Article |
Millennial-scale hydroclimate control of tropical soil carbon storage
Over the past 18,000 years, the residence time and amount of soil carbon stored in the Ganges–Brahmaputra basin have been controlled by the intensity of Indian Summer Monsoon rainfall, with greater carbon destabilization during wetter, warmer conditions.
- Christopher J. Hein
- , Muhammed Usman
- & Valier V. Galy
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News & Views |
Mature forest shows little increase in carbon uptake in a CO2-enriched atmosphere
Will mature forests absorb enough carbon from the atmosphere to mitigate climate change as levels of carbon dioxide increase? An experiment in a eucalyptus forest provides fresh evidence.
- Yiqi Luo
- & Shuli Niu
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Article |
The fate of carbon in a mature forest under carbon dioxide enrichment
Carbon dioxide enrichment of a mature forest resulted in the emission of the excess carbon back into the atmosphere via enhanced ecosystem respiration, suggesting that mature forests may be limited in their capacity to mitigate climate change.
- Mingkai Jiang
- , Belinda E. Medlyn
- & David S. Ellsworth
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Comment |
The oceans’ twilight zone must be studied now, before it is too late
Exploitation and degradation of the mysterious layer between the sunlit ocean surface and the abyss jeopardize fish stocks and the climate.
- Adrian Martin
- , Philip Boyd
- & Lionel Guidi
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Research Highlight |
Stacks of skeletons fertilize a ‘river of bones’
Migrating wildebeest that drown in an African river enrich its waters.
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Nature Podcast |
Podcast: An ancient bird trapped in amber, and life beneath the ocean floor
Hear the latest science news, brought to you by Shamini Bundell and Nick Howe.
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Article |
Recycling and metabolic flexibility dictate life in the lower oceanic crust
Analyses of microbial communities that live 10–750 m below the seafloor at Atlantis Bank, Indian Ocean, provide insights into how these microorganisms survive by coupling energy sources to organic and inorganic carbon resources.
- Jiangtao Li
- , Paraskevi Mara
- & Virginia P. Edgcomb
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News & Views |
Tropical carbon sinks are saturating at different times on different continents
A survey of tree establishment, growth and mortality shows that the rate at which Amazonian tropical forests take up carbon dioxide has slowed since the 1990s, whereas signs of a potential slowdown in Africa appeared only in 2010.
- Anja Rammig
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News |
Enter the twilight zone: scientists dive into the oceans’ mysterious middle
The vast, wild depths between light and shadow face increasing threats from climate change and overfishing.
- Jeff Tollefson
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Article |
Preindustrial 14CH4 indicates greater anthropogenic fossil CH4 emissions
Isotopic evidence from ice cores indicates that preindustrial-era geological methane emissions were lower than previously thought, suggesting that present-day emissions of methane from fossil fuels are underestimated.
- Benjamin Hmiel
- , V. V. Petrenko
- & E. Dlugokencky
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News & Views |
30 years of the iron hypothesis of ice ages
In 1990, an oceanographer who had never worked on climate science proposed that ice-age cooling has been amplified by increased concentrations of iron in the sea — and instigated an explosion of research.
- Heather Stoll
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News Feature |
How peat could protect the planet
Across the globe, drained peatlands are emitting billions of tonnes of carbon dioxide each year. Scotland has emerged as a leader in efforts to restore bogs to health.
- Virginia Gewin
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Research Highlight |
The manicured wetland that sucks up more carbon than a natural marsh
Restoration and strict controls help a saltwater marsh in China to absorb greenhouse gases.
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Editorial |
The life of archaea
Cultivation of Asgard archaea brings us closer to understanding how complex life evolved.
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Article |
The past and future of global river ice
An analysis based on Landsat imagery shows that the extent of river ice has declined extensively over past decades and that this trend will continue under future global warming.
- Xiao Yang
- , Tamlin M. Pavelsky
- & George H. Allen
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Article |
Light-driven anaerobic microbial oxidation of manganese
Anoxygenic photosynthetic microorganisms can biomineralize manganese oxides without molecular oxygen being present and without high-potential photosynthetic reaction centres, which sheds doubt on proposed dates for the origins of oxygenic photosynthetic metabolism.
- Mirna Daye
- , Vanja Klepac-Ceraj
- & Tanja Bosak
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Article |
Marine Proteobacteria metabolize glycolate via the β-hydroxyaspartate cycle
Marine Proteobacteria use the β-hydroxyaspartate cycle to assimilate glycolate, which is secreted by algae on a petagram scale, providing evidence of a previously undescribed trophic interaction between autotrophic phytoplankton and heterotrophic bacterioplankton.
- Lennart Schada von Borzyskowski
- , Francesca Severi
- & Tobias J. Erb
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Article |
California’s methane super-emitters
Emission of methane from ‘point sources’—small surface features or infrastructure components—is monitored with an airborne spectrometer, identifying possible targets for mitigation efforts.
- Riley M. Duren
- , Andrew K. Thorpe
- & Charles E. Miller
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Perspective |
The technological and economic prospects for CO2 utilization and removal
Ten pathways for the utilization of carbon dioxide are reviewed, considering their potential scale, economics and barriers to implementation.
- Cameron Hepburn
- , Ella Adlen
- & Charlotte K. Williams
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Article |
Two-million-year-old snapshots of atmospheric gases from Antarctic ice
Analysis of two-million-year-old ice from Antarctica provides a direct comparison of atmospheric gas levels before and after the shift from glacial cycles of 100 thousand years to 40-thousand-year cycles around one million years ago.
- Yuzhen Yan
- , Michael L. Bender
- & John A. Higgins
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Review Article |
Subducting carbon
The processes that control the movement of carbon from microfossils on the seafloor to erupting volcanoes and deep diamonds, in a cycle driven by plate tectonics, are reviewed.
- Terry Plank
- & Craig E. Manning
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Letter |
Diversity decoupled from ecosystem function and resilience during mass extinction recovery
After the Cretaceous/Palaeogene mass extinction event, nannoplankton communities exhibited volatility for 1.8 million years before a more stable community emerged, coinciding with restoration of the carbon cycle and a fully functioning biological pump between the surface and deep sea.
- Sarah A. Alvarez
- , Samantha J. Gibbs
- & Andy Ridgwell
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News & Views |
Soils linked to climate change
Carbon has been stored in the organic layers of boreal-forest soils for hundreds of years. An analysis reveals that this carbon might be released into the atmosphere as global warming increases the frequency of wildfires.
- Cornelia Rumpel
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Review Article |
Challenges in evidencing the earliest traces of life
Abiotic processes can mimic or alter the biogenic traces of early life but advances in micro- and nanoscale analyses provide evidence that—with geological contextualization—improves our ability to address this issue.
- Emmanuelle J. Javaux
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Letter |
Increasing wildfires threaten historic carbon sink of boreal forest soils
Soil radiocarbon dating reveals that combusted ‘legacy carbon’—soil carbon that escaped burning during previous fires—could shift the carbon balance of boreal ecosystems, resulting in a positive climate feedback.
- Xanthe J. Walker
- , Jennifer L. Baltzer
- & Michelle C. Mack
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Letter |
Fossil insect eyes shed light on trilobite optics and the arthropod pigment screen
Comparing the eyes of crane-fly fossils with those of extant species demonstrates that they contain eumelanic screening pigments and that the lenses are calcified during fossilization, with implications for interpreting optical systems in other extinct arthropods such as trilobites.
- Johan Lindgren
- , Dan-Eric Nilsson
- & Per Ahlberg
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Letter |
Climate change and overfishing increase neurotoxicant in marine predators
Overfishing and warming ocean temperature have caused an increase in methylmercury concentrations in some Atlantic predatory fish, and this trend is predicted to continue unless stronger mercury and carbon emissions standards are imposed.
- Amina T. Schartup
- , Colin P. Thackray
- & Elsie M. Sunderland
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Letter |
Elemental signatures of Australopithecus africanus teeth reveal seasonal dietary stress
Trace-element analysis of teeth from the hominin Australopithecus africanus, dated to 2.6–2.1 million years ago, sheds light on the weaning sequence of this species and its responses to seasonal food scarcity
- Renaud Joannes-Boyau
- , Justin W. Adams
- & Luca Fiorenza
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Letter |
Mineral protection regulates long-term global preservation of natural organic carbon
Broadening activation energy distributions and increasing radiocarbon ages reveal the global importance of mineral protection in promoting organic carbon preservation.
- Jordon D. Hemingway
- , Daniel H. Rothman
- & Valier V. Galy
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Article |
Forearc carbon sink reduces long-term volatile recycling into the mantle
In the forearc regions of Costa Rica, helium and carbon isotope data reveal that about 20 per cent less carbon is being transported into the deep mantle than previously thought.
- P. H. Barry
- , J. M. de Moor
- & K. G. Lloyd
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Letter |
Five decades of northern land carbon uptake revealed by the interhemispheric CO2 gradient
Measurements of the interhemispheric gradient of atmospheric carbon dioxide show that the Northern Hemisphere carbon land sink remained stable between the 1960s and the late 1980s, then increased during the 1990s and 2000s.
- P. Ciais
- , J. Tan
- & P. Tans
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Research Highlight |
Animal poo could propel nations towards food independence
Manure, food waste and similar sources could be recycled to curb reliance on imported phosphate rock used for agriculture.
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Nature Podcast |
Podcast: Coastal carbon-sinks, mobile health, and Mileva Marić
Benjamin Thompson and Nick Howe bring you the latest science updates.
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Letter |
Wetland carbon storage controlled by millennial-scale variation in relative sea-level rise
Wetlands exposed to rapid sea-level rise over the late Holocene contain more soil carbon than those that experienced a long period of sea-level stability.
- Kerrylee Rogers
- , Jeffrey J. Kelleway
- & Colin D. Woodroffe
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Letter |
Managing nitrogen to restore water quality in China
Estimates of spatial patterns of nitrogen discharge into water bodies across China between 1955 and 2014 show that current discharge rates are almost three times the acceptable threshold, and ways to restore a clean water environment are suggested.
- ChaoQing Yu
- , Xiao Huang
- & James Taylor
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News & Views |
Consistent patterns of nitrogen fixation identified in the ocean
Nitrogen gas dissolved in the ocean must be fixed — converted into more-reactive compounds — before it can be used to support life, but the regions in which this nitrogen fixation occurs have been elusive. Not any more.
- Nicolas Gruber
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Article |
Convergent estimates of marine nitrogen fixation
Convergent estimates of nitrogen fixation from an inverse biogeochemical and a prognostic ocean model show that biological carbon export in the ocean is higher than expected and that stabilizing nitrogen-cycle feedbacks are weaker than we thought.
- Wei-Lei Wang
- , J. Keith Moore
- & François W. Primeau
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Perspective |
Deep learning and process understanding for data-driven Earth system science
Complex Earth system challenges can be addressed by incorporating spatial and temporal context into machine learning, especially via deep learning, and further by combining with physical models into hybrid models.
- Markus Reichstein
- , Gustau Camps-Valls
- & Prabhat
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News |
Tropical Africa could be a key to solving methane mystery
Project analyses wetlands’ contribution to a spike in atmospheric concentrations of the potent greenhouse gas.
- Jeff Tollefson
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News & Views |
Atmospheric reaction networks affecting climate are more complex than was thought
Experiments show that the amount of atmospheric particles produced from plant emissions could be lower than was thought — challenging our understanding of the processes that affect air quality and climate.
- Fangqun Yu
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News Feature |
How much can forests fight climate change?
Trees are supposed to slow global warming, but growing evidence suggests they might not always be climate saviours.
- Gabriel Popkin
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News & Views |
Methane beneath Greenland’s ice sheet is being released
Methane produced in sediments beneath the Greenland Ice Sheet is released to the atmosphere by meltwater in the summer. This suggests that glacial melt could be an important global source of this greenhouse gas.
- Lauren C. Andrews