Sinking diatoms trap silicon in deep seawater of acidified oceans

Hutchins, David A.

doi:10.1038/d41586-022-01365-z

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25 May 2022

Sinking diatoms trap silicon in deep seawater of acidified oceans

The seas are acidifying as a result of carbon dioxide emissions. It now emerges that this will alter the solubility of the shells of marine organisms called diatoms — and thereby change the distribution of nutrients and plankton in the ocean.

David A. Hutchins ORCID: http://orcid.org/0000-0002-6637-756X⁰

David A. Hutchins
1. David A. Hutchins is in the Marine and Environmental Biology section, Department of Biological Sciences, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California 90089, USA.
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The ecologically dominant phytoplankton in much of the ocean are a group of unicellular organisms known as diatoms. Writing in Nature, Taucher et al.¹ present a study that uses a combination of experimental, observational and modelling approaches to examine how the diatom-driven effects of ocean acidification — a consequence of rising carbon dioxide concentrations in seawater — will affect biogeochemical cycles. The separate lines of evidence suggest that ocean acidification will have far-reaching effects on the export of elements to the deep ocean.

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Nature 605, 622-623 (2022)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-022-01365-z

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