Ecology articles within Nature Geoscience

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  • Letter |

    The impact of thawing permafrost on the nitrogen cycle is uncertain. Laboratory experiments using permafrost cores from northeast Greenland reveal that rewetting of thawed permafrost increases nitrous oxide production over 20-fold.

    • Bo Elberling
    • , Hanne H. Christiansen
    •  & Birger U. Hansen

  • News & Views |

    Many species of nannoplankton with carbonate shells vanished during the mass extinction 65 million years ago. An analysis of extinction rates from the world's oceans reveals a geographic bias in the demise and recovery of nannoplankton species.

    • Paul B. Wignall

  • Letter |

    Mineral dust and marine sediment resuspension are generally considered the primary sources of the nutrient iron to the oceans. Numerical model results suggest that iron released by hydrothermal activity is also an important source of dissolved iron, particularly in the Southern Ocean.

    • Alessandro Tagliabue
    • , Laurent Bopp
    •  & Catherine Jeandel

  • News & Views |

    At the end of the twentieth century, tropical deforestation was associated with the growth of rural populations. An assessment of the factors involved in forest loss suggests that today's trees are more likely to be affected by economic pressures from farther afield.

    • J. A. Cardille
    •  & E. M. Bennett

  • News & Views |

    About 94.5 million years ago, oxygen levels in the deep ocean dropped while carbon burial rapidly increased. Geochemical analyses suggest that the release of sulphate from extensive volcanism set off a sequence of biogeochemical reactions that led to ocean anoxia.

    • Haydon P. Mort

  • Letter |

    The onset of fluvial erosion in an area of tectonic uplift is thought to reflect the timing of the uplift. Geomorphological data from the Yellow River in Tibet, indicate that the rapid incision of this river channel occurred as a result of climate change, at least six million years after the onset of plateau uplift.

    • William H. Craddock
    • , Eric Kirby
    •  & Jianhui Liu

  • Letter |

    Ninety-four million years ago, during Ocean Anoxic Event 2, there was a marked increase in the burial of organic carbon in marine sediments. Measurements of stomata in fossil leaves show that the two main pulses of carbon burial were associated with a decline in atmospheric CO2 levels of up to 26%.

    • Richard S. Barclay
    • , Jennifer C. McElwain
    •  & Bradley B. Sageman

  • Letter |

    In the Arctic spring, sunlight-induced reactions convert gaseous elemental mercury into compounds that are rapidly deposited on the snowpack. Analysis of the isotopic composition of mercury in snow samples collected during an atmospheric mercury depletion event suggests that sunlight triggers the re-emission of mercury from the snowpack.

    • Laura S. Sherman
    • , Joel D. Blum
    •  & Thomas A. Douglas

  • Letter |

    Several periods of global ocean anoxia punctuated the Cretaceous period. Marine-sediment chemistry indicates that extensive volcanism at the beginning of Oceanic Anoxic Event 2 released sulphur to the oceans, triggering a biogeochemical cascade that led to enhanced surface productivity and depletion of oxygen in the underlying waters.

    • Derek D. Adams
    • , Matthew T. Hurtgen
    •  & Bradley B. Sageman

  • Progress Article |

    Arsenic levels in shallow groundwater in the Bengal Basin exceed thresholds for safe drinking water. Groundwater modelling indicates that deep wells that reach safe water below 150 m could remain safe for centuries if used for domestic water only, whereas the intensive use of deep groundwater for irrigation could contaminate this resource within decades.

    • W. G. Burgess
    • , M. A. Hoque
    •  & K. M. Ahmed

  • News & Views |

    Arsenic occurs naturally in the groundwater of southern Asia. Analyses of an agricultural site in Bangladesh suggest that human activities, including widespread farming practices, can dictate where elevated arsenic is found.

    • Shawn Benner

  • News & Views |

    The effect of rising greenhouse-gas emissions on climate is not uniform across the globe. An analysis of the mechanisms behind model-projected changes in ocean temperature gives greater confidence in the pattern of tropical warming and its potential impacts.

    • Amy C. Clement
    • , Andrew C. Baker
    •  & Julie Leloup

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