Biogeochemistry articles from across Nature Portfolio

There are no good models for the chemical evolution of the Earth’s surface over the planet’s lifetime, because models typically overlook the progressive build-up of carbonate rocks in the crust. A new model that includes this accumulation enables the reconstruction of major oxygen and temperature trends throughout Earth’s history.

Plasticity and evolutionary changes in phytoplankton phenotypes in the ocean can be better represented by integrating statistical and multi-trait-based numerical models which will help improve predictions of future ecosystem states and ocean carbon cycling.

Using complementary multiplicity-edited ¹³C nuclear magnetic resonance spectra, oxidative dearomatization is shown to be a key driver for generating structural diversity during processing of dissolved organic matter and the data also suggest high abundance of OC_qC₃ units.

Microbial denitrification in rice paddy fields reduces N use efficiency. Here, the authors use field samples from major rice producing areas in China and identify microbial taxa involved in the metabolic couplings between aerobic CH₄ oxidation and denitrification in rice paddy fields.

Xiao et al. uncover a strong linkage between marine bacterial tetraether lipids and benthic oxygen uptake in deepsea trench regions, indicating their potential for assessing microbial diagenetic activity and organic carbon degradation.

Multidisciplinary culture-dependent and -independent techniques elucidate the unique microbial nitrogen cycle in nutrient-poor coastal Antarctica soils and reveal the contribution of novel key microbes to their nitrogen budget.

This Genome Watch article highlights the recent use of large-scale monitoring of natural microbiomes to examine feedback between environmental change and microbial adaptation.

There are no good models for the chemical evolution of the Earth’s surface over the planet’s lifetime, because models typically overlook the progressive build-up of carbonate rocks in the crust. A new model that includes this accumulation enables the reconstruction of major oxygen and temperature trends throughout Earth’s history.

Oxygen levels in the ocean increased three times between the early Ediacaran and the early Cambrian, in synchrony with major developments in animal evolution.

The ocean stores about 30% of the carbon emitted by human activities, regulating atmospheric CO₂ levels and the Earth’s climate. Research suggests that this uptake of CO₂ has strengthened much faster in coastal ocean waters than in the open ocean due to enhanced biological activity.

The carbon emissions of large igneous province magmatism are commonly associated with severe environmental crises. We developed a technique that used sedimentary mercury records to estimate these carbon fluxes through time and found that they are smaller and/or slower than assumed, which suggests that the influence of carbon-cycle feedback processes is underestimated in current models.