Biogeochemistry articles within Nature Communications

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  • Article
    | Open Access

    One-third of Earth’s carbon is sequestered in peatlands, and its stability in the face of climate change is unknown. Here the authors show that warming leads to the release of carbon as methane, but only the most prolonged warming leads to the breakdown and release of deep, old carbon.

    • A. M. Hopple
    • , R. M. Wilson
    •  & S. D. Bridgham

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Identification of stratospheric volcanic eruptions in the geological record and their link to mass extinction events during the past 540 million years remains challenging. Here, the authors report unexpected, large mass-independent sulphur isotopic compositions of pyrite in Late Ordovician sedimentary rocks, which they suggest originates from stratospheric volcanism linked to the first pulse of the Late Ordovician mass extinction.

    • Dongping Hu
    • , Menghan Li
    •  & Yanan Shen

  • Article
    | Open Access

    CH4 seepage mostly occurs in petroleum-bearing sedimentary basins, but the role of tectonics in degassing is mostly only known at a local scale. Here, the authors conduct a global scale analysis of seeps, faults, sedimentary basins, petroleum fields and heat flow, and find that geological CH4 seepage preferably develops in convergent basins, while gas seeps can occur along any brittle tectonic structure.

    • Giancarlo Ciotoli
    • , Monia Procesi
    •  & Guido Ventura

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Reactive iron minerals protect vast amounts of terrestrial carbon from decomposition and release as CO2. Here the authors show that reactive iron alone does not provide sufficient protection except under strict oxic conditions—instead, iron itself promotes carbon decomposition.

    • Chunmei Chen
    • , Steven J. Hall
    •  & Aaron Thompson

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Generally it is thought that confining clay layers provide protection to low-arsenic groundwaters against intrusion of shallower, high-arsenic groundwater bodies. Here, the authors show that impermeable clay layers can increase arsenic input to underlying groundwater systems due to reduction of iron oxides coupled to carbon oxidation.

    • Ivan Mihajlov
    • , M. Rajib H. Mozumder
    •  & Alexander van Geen

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Previous work suggests that marine oxygen levels and bioturbation are important factors that shape phosphorus burial and the size of the marine biosphere. Here the authors show that seawater calcium concentration is a key factor in controlling marine P burial, and thus the global oxygen cycle.

    • Mingyu Zhao
    • , Shuang Zhang
    •  & Noah Planavsky

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Threats to marine ecosystems are increasing due to ocean acidification, but trends are spatiotemporally difficult to monitor or predict. Here the authors use an Earth system model to accurately predict surface pH changes in the economically and ecologically important California Current System.

    • Riley X. Brady
    • , Nicole S. Lovenduski
    •  & Keith Lindsay

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Biosphere productivity is an important component of the CO2 cycle, but how it has varied over past glacial-interglacial cycles is not well known. Here, the authors present new data that shows that global biosphere productivity was 10 to 30% higher during Termination V compared to younger deglaciations.

    • Margaux Brandon
    • , Amaelle Landais
    •  & Thomas Blunier

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Plants respond to increasing CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere by stomatal closure which causes a reduction of evapotranspiration and thus latent heat flux. Here, the authors show that this CO2 physiological forcing strengthens Arctic warming through increasing sea ice loss and local feedbacks.

    • So-Won Park
    • , Jin-Soo Kim
    •  & Jong-Seong Kug

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Bacteria capable of anaerobic ammonium oxidation (anammox) produce half of the nitrogen gas in the atmosphere, but much of their physiology is still unknown. Here the authors show that anammox bacteria are capable of a novel mechanism of ammonium oxidation using extracellular electron transfer.

    • Dario R. Shaw
    • , Muhammad Ali
    •  & Pascal E. Saikaly

  • Article
    | Open Access

    DMSP is a ubiquitous organosulfur compound in the ocean that, once degraded by bacteria, plays key roles in global biogeochemical cycles and climate regulation. Here, the authors use single-cell measurements of transcription to investigate the intricate dynamics of bacterial DMSP degradation.

    • Cherry Gao
    • , Vicente I. Fernandez
    •  & Roman Stocker

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Rice paddies are a major source of the Earth’s atmospheric methane, making these important food crops potent contributors to greenhouse gas emissions. Here the authors show that inoculation of paddies with a particular bacterium could significantly curb methane production.

    • Vincent V. Scholz
    • , Rainer U. Meckenstock
    •  & Nils Risgaard-Petersen

  • Article
    | Open Access

    In recent history the amount of carbon captured by terrestrial systems has increased, but the processes driving this process has remained poorly constrained. Here the authors use a global carbon model to show that a decrease in wildfires has caused the land carbon sink to increase in the past few decades.

    • Yi Yin
    • , A. Anthony Bloom
    •  & David Schimel

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Trypanosoma brucei guanosine 5′-monophosphate reductase (TbGMPR) catalyses the conversion of GMP to inosine 5′-monophosphate and contains a cystathionine-β-synthase (CBS) domain. Here the authors combine X-ray crystallography and kinetic measurements and present the GMP-, GTP-bound and nucleotide-free TbGMPR structures and show that guanine and adenine nucleotides are allosteric regulators of TbGMPR that bind to the CBS domain.

    • Akira Imamura
    • , Tetsuya Okada
    •  & Takashi Inui

  • Article
    | Open Access

    High latitude droughts are increasing, but their effects on freshwater systems are poorly understood. Here the authors investigate Sweden’s most severe drought in the last century and show that these dry conditions induce hypoxia and elevated methane production from streams.

    • Lluís Gómez-Gener
    • , Anna Lupon
    •  & Ryan A. Sponseller

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The Late Ordovician mass extinction has been attributed to extended marine anoxia. Here, the authors use a metal isotope mass balance model and find the marine anoxic event lasted over 3 million years, notably longer than the anoxic event associated with the Permian-Triassic extinction and Cretaceous ocean anoxic events.

    • Richard G. Stockey
    • , Devon B. Cole
    •  & Erik A. Sperling

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Arctic plant growth is predominantly nitrogen limited, where the slow nitrogen turnover in the soil is commonly attributed to the cold arctic climate. Here the authors show that the arctic plant-soil nitrogen cycling is also constrained by the lack of larger detritivores like earthworms.

    • Gesche Blume-Werry
    • , Eveline J. Krab
    •  & Jonatan Klaminder

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Earth’s surface underwent a dramatic transition ~2.3 billion years ago when atmospheric oxygen first accumulated during the Great Oxidation Event. Here, the authors find that biogenic methane and volcanic emissions played a vital role in the reduced Late Archean atmosphere.

    • Aubrey L. Zerkle
    • , Runsheng Yin
    •  & Stephen E. Grasby

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The release of ancient carbon from thawing permafrost is thought to have an important impact on global biogeochemistry through positive feedbacks. Here Dean and colleagues show that in Siberian permafrost, warming could liberate more contemporary carbon relative to aged counterparts.

    • Joshua F. Dean
    • , Ove H. Meisel
    •  & A. Johannes Dolman

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Global atmospheric CO2 varies between glacial–interglacial cycles. Here, the authors study these changes using Si records and how the Si flux and ocean circulation changes controlled the global Si distribution across the last deglaciation, based on high-resolution Si-isotope records from the Indian Sector Southern Ocean.

    • M. Dumont
    • , L. Pichevin
    •  & R. Ganeshram

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Coastal pollution degrades ecosystems, but long term impacts are unknown in Australia’s Great Barrier Reef. Using a 333 year record of coral skeleton nitrogen isotopes, Erler and colleagues show that increasing nutrient inputs since European settlement have led to unexpected feedback responses.

    • Dirk V. Erler
    • , Hanieh Tohidi Farid
    •  & Janice M. Lough

  • Article
    | Open Access

    In this study, the authors show that water flowing through thawed soils below the tundra surface (supra-permafrost groundwater) can be a major source of dissolved organic matter (DOM) to Arctic coastal waters during the summer. This DOM contains leachates from old soil carbon stocks, including potential contributions from thawing permafrost.

    • Craig T. Connolly
    • , M. Bayani Cardenas
    •  & James W. McClelland

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Complex macroscopic organisms are first found in the Ediacaran period, but their ecology during this time is not well understood. Here, Bobrovskiy et al. analyse biomarkers from Ediacaran sediments hosting macrofossils and find evidence for abundant algal food sources available for these organisms.

    • Ilya Bobrovskiy
    • , Janet M. Hope
    •  & Jochen J. Brocks

  • Article
    | Open Access

    There lacks research to figure out the variations in sources, magnitude, and spatiotemporal patterns of Nr flows in urban system. Here the authors develop a coupled human-natural urban nitrogen flow analysis model and show that anthropogenic perturbations not only intensify Nr input to sustain increasing demands for production and consumption of cities, but also greatly change the Nr distribution pattern in the urban system.

    • Yue Dong
    • , Linyu Xu
    •  & Lei Chen

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The Southern Ocean is an important sink of carbon via the biological pump. Here authors run high-resolution physical/biogeochemical simulations of an open-Southern Ocean ecosystem forced with a realistic seasonal cycle and confirm that (sub)mesoscale iron transport across the mixing-layer base sustains primary productivity.

    • Takaya Uchida
    • , Dhruv Balwada
    •  & Marina Lévy

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Palm oil biofuels are touted as a sustainable alternative to fossil fuels. Meijide and colleagues use greenhouse gas measurements to update life cycle assessments of oil palm growth scenarios and show that despite the promise, emission savings do not meet sustainability standards.

    • Ana Meijide
    • , Cristina de la Rua
    •  & Alexander Knohl

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Eddies are common ocean features that isolate large swaths of seawater, but it is unclear how they influence productivity of phytoplankton trapped inside. Here Ellwood and colleagues use stable and radiogenic isotopes to characterize a Southern Ocean eddy, finding vanishingly low iron concentrations that drive low productivity across the region.

    • Michael J. Ellwood
    • , Robert F. Strzepek
    •  & Philip W. Boyd

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Ammonia oxidizing archaea and Nitrospinae are the main known nitrifiers in the ocean, but the much greater abundance of the former is puzzling. Here, the authors show that differences in mortality, rather than thermodynamics, cell size or biomass yield, explain the discrepancy, without the need to invoke yet undiscovered, abundant nitrite oxidizers.

    • Katharina Kitzinger
    • , Hannah K. Marchant
    •  & Marcel M. M. Kuypers

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Plants are thought to be limited by phosphorus (P) especially in tropical regions. Here, Hou et al. report a meta-analysis of P fertilization experiments to show widespread P limitation on plant growth across terrestrial ecosystems modulated by climate, ecosystem properties, and fertilization regimes

    • Enqing Hou
    • , Yiqi Luo
    •  & Dazhi Wen

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The role of paddy rice agriculture in the spatial and temporal dynamics of atmospheric methane concentration remains unclear. Here, Zhang et al. show that regions with dense rice paddies have high satellite-based column averaged CH4 concentrations (XCH4), and that seasonal dynamics of XCH4 mirror those of paddy rice growth.

    • Geli Zhang
    • , Xiangming Xiao
    •  & Berrien Moore III

  • Article
    | Open Access

    In this study, the authors investigate thermal alteration of organic biomarkers to detect paleo earthquakes in the Japan Trench. The study shows that large earthquakes like the 2011 Tohoku-Oki earthquake can slip through different types of sediment rather than being restricted to the weakest layers.

    • Hannah S. Rabinowitz
    • , Heather M. Savage
    •  & James D. Kirkpatrick

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Despite growing aquaculture production and environmental concerns on phosphorus (P) enrichment, the P budgets of fisheries have been largely overlooked. Here, Huang et al. calculate global fishery P budgets and estimate P use efficiency for a wide range of aquaculture systems.

    • Yuanyuan Huang
    • , Phillipe Ciais
    •  & Haicheng Zhang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Wetlands are global hotspots of carbon storage, but errors exist with current estimates of the extent of their carbon density. Here the authors show that mangrove sediment organic carbon stock has previously been overestimated, while ecosystem carbon stock has been underestimated.

    • Xiaoguang Ouyang
    •  & Shing Yip Lee

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Cloudinomorphs were one of the few groups to survive from the Ediacaran into the Cambrian, but they are known only from their external tubes. Here, Schiffbauer et al. report soft-tissue preservation of cloudinomorphs; the internal structures are interpreted as guts characteristic of bilaterians.

    • James D. Schiffbauer
    • , Tara Selly
    •  & Emily F. Smith

  • Article
    | Open Access

    In this study, the authors use planktic foraminiferal data to reconstruct ocean carbonate chemistry and temperature from 16.5 to 11 Ma from a size in the tropical eastern Indian Ocean to look at the causes of the Monterey Excursion (ME). They find a positive relationship between dissolved inorganic (DIC) carbon and the ME and a negative one for DIC and the carbon maxima events.

    • S. M. Sosdian
    • , T. L. Babila
    •  & C. H. Lear

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Recent recession of the Larsen Ice Shelf C has revealed that microbial alteration of illite can occur within marine sediments, a process previously thought to only occur abiotically during low-grade metamorphism. Here, the authors show that such microbial alteration of illite could provide a potential source of Fe release to Southern Ocean waters during Holocene glacial cycles.

    • Jaewoo Jung
    • , Kyu-Cheul Yoo
    •  & Jinwook Kim

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Earth’s carbon cycle and oceanic magnesium cycle are controlled by processes such as weathering, volcanism and precipitation of carbonates, such as dolomite. Here, the authors contradict the view that modern dolomite formation is rare and suggest instead that dolomite accounts for ~40–60% of the global oceanic Mg output in the last 20 Ma.

    • Netta Shalev
    • , Tomaso R. R. Bontognali
    •  & Derek Vance

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The contribution of symbiotic dinitrogen fixation to the forest carbon sink could change throughout forest succession. Here the authors model nitrogen cycling and light competition between trees based on data from Panamanian forest plots, showing that fixation contributes substantially to the carbon sink in early successional stages.

    • Jennifer H. Levy-Varon
    • , Sarah A. Batterman
    •  & Lars O. Hedin

  • Article
    | Open Access

    It remains challenging to estimate carbon accumulation rates in tidal wetlands on a scale as large as the conterminous US. Here, the authors find that mean C accumulation rates vary greatly among watershed regions but not among vegetation types, and that tidal wetlands’ C sequestration capability will remain or increase by 2100, suggesting a resilience to sea level rise.

    • Faming Wang
    • , Xiaoliang Lu
    •  & Jianwu Tang

  • Comment
    | Open Access

    As climate change thaws the Arctic’s foundations, new subterranean waterways form and threaten to wash away and decompose carbon once locked in permafrost. In this Comment, Vonk and co-authors outline a cross-disciplinary strategy--with hydrology at the forefront--to better understand the fate of Arctic carbon.

    • J. E. Vonk
    • , S. E. Tank
    •  & M. A. Walvoord

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Deciphering the origin, age, and composition of deep marine organic carbon remains a challenge for understanding the dynamics of the marine carbon cycle. Here, the authors identify (sub)micron-sized graphite emanating from both high and low temperature hydrothermal vents along the East Pacific Rise, and suggest graphite is a source of old carbon in the deep ocean.

    • Emily R. Estes
    • , Debora Berti
    •  & George W. Luther III

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Global soil carbon dynamics are regulated by the modification of soil organic matter (SOM) decomposition by plant carbon input (priming effect). Here, the authors collect soil data along a 2200 km grassland transect on the Tibetan Plateau and find that SOM stability is the major control on priming effect.

    • Leiyi Chen
    • , Li Liu
    •  & Yuanhe Yang

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