Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

Biological oceanography

The CO2 switch in diatoms

Nature Climate Change volume 5, pages 722–723 (2015)Cite this article

Subjects

Diatoms are important primary producers in the ocean, however their response to rising CO2 is uncertain. Now research shows how diatoms regulate their metabolism in response to changing CO2.

Diatoms are unicellular algae that account for ∼20% of global primary production1. Some of the carbon fixed is exported to the deep ocean, leading to a carbon sink. How carbon fixation by diatoms will respond to rising CO2 is unclear as most experiments so far have measured only the net carbon fixation and found conflicting results2. There is a need to understand the physiological and metabolic processes that underpin the diatom response to changes in CO2. Writing in Nature Climate Change, Gwenn Hennon and colleagues3 measure the expression of genes in diatoms that are acclimated to various CO2 concentrations, and use these data to elucidate the mechanism behind the physiological changes observed in their N-limited continuous cultures. They also probe a compilation of gene expression data from previous CO2 manipulation experiments and show that the same signalling pathway controls the regulation of genes that code proteins involved in the carbon concentrating mechanism (CCM) and photorespiration.

Your institute does not have access to this article

Relevant articles

Open Access articles citing this article.

Access options

Buy article

Get time limited or full article access on ReadCube.

$32.00

Buy

All prices are NET prices.

Figure 1: Metabolic response of T. pseudonana, acclimated to high CO2 in N-limited continuous cultures with constant growth rate.

References

  1. Falkowski, P. G. & Raven, J. A., Aquatic Photosynthesis Vol. 2 (Princeton Univ. Press, 2007).

    Google Scholar 

  2. Gao, K. & Campbell, D. A. Func. Plant Biol. 41, 449–459 (2014).

    CAS  Article  Google Scholar 

  3. Hennon, G. M. M. et al. Nature Clim. Change 5, 761–765 nclimate2683 (2015).

    CAS  Article  Google Scholar 

  4. Raven, J., Giordano, M., Beardall, J. & Maberly, S. C. Photosynth. Res. 101, 281–296 (2011).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  5. Hennon, G. M. M., Quay, P., Morales, R. L., Swanson, L. M. & Virginia Armbrust, E. J. Phycol. 50, 243–253 (2014).

    CAS  Article  Google Scholar 

  6. Tolbert, N. E. in The Biochemistry of Plants Vol. 2 (eds Stumpf, P. & Conn, E.) 488–525 (Academic, 1980).

    Google Scholar 

  7. Ohno, N. et al. Plant Physiol. 158, 499–513 (2012).

    CAS  Article  Google Scholar 

  8. Young, J. N., Kranz, S. A., Goldman, J. A. L., Tortell, P. D. & Morel, F. M. Mar. Ecol. Prog. Ser. http://dx.doi.org/10.3354/meps11336 (2015).

  9. Hopkinson, B. M., Dupont, C. L., Allen, A. E. & Morel, F. M. M. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 108, 3830–3837 (2011).

    CAS  Article  Google Scholar 

  10. Giordano, M., Beardall, J. & Raven, J. A. Ann. Rev. Plant Biol. 56, 99–131 (2005).

    CAS  Article  Google Scholar 

  11. Hopkinson, B., Xu, Y., Shi, D., McGinn, P. J. & Morel, F. M. Limnol. Oceanogr. 55, 2011–2024 (2010).

    CAS  Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Jodi Young and François M. M. Morel are in the Department of Geosciences, Princeton University, NJ 08544 USA,

    Jodi N. Young & François M. M. Morel

Authors
  1. Jodi N. Young
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. François M. M. Morel
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Jodi N. Young.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and Permissions

About this article

Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Young, J., Morel, F. The CO2 switch in diatoms. Nature Clim Change 5, 722–723 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1038/nclimate2691

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nclimate2691

Further reading

Search

Advanced search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing