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Matters Arising
| Open AccessReply to: Rectifying misinformation on the climate intervention potential of ocean afforestation
- Lennart T. Bach
- , Veronica Tamsitt
- & Philip W. Boyd
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Article
| Open Access
Meta-analysis shows the impacts of ecological restoration on greenhouse gas emissions
International initiatives set ambitious targets for ecological restoration. Here, the authors conduct a meta-analysis to quantify the impacts of ecological restoration on greenhouse gas emissions and find that forest, grassland, and wetland restoration reduce global warming potential.
- Tiehu He
- , Weixin Ding
- & Quanfa Zhang
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| Open Access
Treeline displacement may affect lake dissolved organic matter processing at high latitudes and altitudes
Shifts in the treeline may induce changes in organic matter composition of lakes at high altitude and latitude. Here, the authors experimentally unravel effects of soil-derived DOM for lake carbon biogeochemistry and bacterial carbon use efficiency.
- Núria Catalán
- , Carina Rofner
- & Hannes Peter
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| Open Access
Elevation-dependent pattern of net CO2 uptake across China
The authors employed 203 eddy covariance towers to reveal a negative and varying elevation dependent pattern of CO2 uptake, under changes in Earth’s climate and human activities.
- Da Wei
- , Jing Tao
- & Xiaodan Wang
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| Open Access
Reconciling ice core CO2 and land-use change following New World-Old World contact
Ice core records of gradually declining atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) for the period 1450–1700 CE support modelled scenarios of large-scale reorganisation of land use in the Americas following New World-Old World contact.
- Amy C. F. King
- , Thomas K. Bauska
- & Matthew B. Osman
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| Open Access
Geographic range of plants drives long-term climate change
The geographic spread of plants exerted an important control over ancient climate change by modifying continental weathering and carbon burial rates. This effect is investigated using a new coupled vegetation-climate-biogeochemical model.
- Khushboo Gurung
- , Katie J. Field
- & Benjamin J. W. Mills
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| Open Access
Myriad Mapping of nanoscale minerals reveals calcium carbonate hemihydrate in forming nacre and coral biominerals
A new carbonate phase calcium carbonate hemihydrate was recently discovered and characterized, but exclusively as a synthetic material. Here the authors find that it exists in nature, albeit transiently, on the surface of growing nacre and coral skeletons, and show that 2 amorphous and 2 metastable crystalline nano-minerals form before biominerals settle into their stable crystals.
- Connor A. Schmidt
- , Eric Tambutté
- & Pupa U.P.A. Gilbert
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Matters Arising
| Open Access
Reply to: Field experiments show no consistent reductions in soil microbial carbon in response to warming
- Guillaume Patoine
- , Nico Eisenhauer
- & Carlos A. Guerra
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Matters Arising
| Open Access
Field experiments show no consistent reductions in soil microbial carbon in response to warming
- Chao Yue
- , Jinshi Jian
- & Ben Bond-Lamberty
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| Open Access
Anthropogenic carbon pathways towards the North Atlantic interior revealed by Argo-O2, neural networks and back-calculations
Large emissions of anthropogenic carbon dioxide have been partly absorbed by the oceans. Here, the authors use Argo-O2 floats combined with existing methods to study the distribution of this anthropogenic CO2 in the North Atlantic Ocean.
- Rémy Asselot
- , Lidia I. Carracedo
- & Fiz F. Pérez
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| Open Access
Transition from positive to negative indirect CO2 effects on the vegetation carbon uptake
It is unclear how indirect CO2 effect – via associated climate change – on vegetation carbon uptake changes globally. Here, the authors show that such initial positive effect has declined recently, shifting to negative in the early 21st century.
- Zefeng Chen
- , Weiguang Wang
- & Alessandro Cescatti
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| Open Access
Patterns in the temporal complexity of global chlorophyll concentration
For satellite data, noisy observations can often be ignored in favour of smooth trends and signals. Here, the authors developed a method to quantify the complexity of chlorophyll-α time series on a global scale, which led to the discovery of greater differences among regions than previously recognized.
- Vitul Agarwal
- , Jonathan Chávez-Casillas
- & Colleen B. Mouw
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| Open Access
Global distribution of surface soil organic carbon in urban greenspaces
Using observed data, Guo et al. present a comprehensive assessment of soil organic carbon density and stock in global urban greenspaces. This study elucidates the global distribution of soil organic carbon in urban greenspaces and provides a baseline for future projection.
- Hongbo Guo
- , Enzai Du
- & Robert B. Jackson
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| Open Access
Revealing the hidden carbon in forested wetland soils
A large proportion of wetland extent is not mapped in currently available national datasets. Incorporating newly revealed wetlands into soil carbon mapping methods increases estimates of wetland soil carbon stock by 482%.
- Anthony J. Stewart
- , Meghan Halabisky
- & L. Monika Moskal
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| Open Access
Salinity causes widespread restriction of methane emissions from small inland waters
Small inland water bodies are widely seen as important sources of methane to the atmosphere. This study demonstrates that hardwater ecosystems emit less of this potent greenhouse gas than predicted due to complex biogeochemical controls
- Cynthia Soued
- , Matthew J. Bogard
- & Paige Kowal
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| Open Access
Drought may exacerbate dryland soil inorganic carbon loss under warming climate conditions
Drought is shown to enhance the temperature sensitivity of soil inorganic carbon dissolution but to weaken that of soil organic carbon decomposition, indicating that drought may exacerbate dryland soil carbon loss from inorganic carbon under warming.
- Jinquan Li
- , Junmin Pei
- & Ming Nie
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Thermal responses of dissolved organic matter under global change
The response of organic molecules to climate change is linked to warming, nutrient loading, and greenhouse gas emissions, according to an indicator developed to quantify the aggregated thermal response of individual organic molecules.
- Ang Hu
- , Kyoung-Soon Jang
- & Jianjun Wang
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| Open Access
Knowledge-guided machine learning can improve carbon cycle quantification in agroecosystems
Existing models to estimate agroecosystem C cycle have large uncertainties. Here, the authors propose a knowledge-guided machine learning framework that improves C cycle quantification in agroecosystems by integrating process-based and machine learning models, and multi-source high-resolution data.
- Licheng Liu
- , Wang Zhou
- & Zhenong Jin
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| Open Access
Microbially mediated mechanisms underlie soil carbon accrual by conservation agriculture under decade-long warming
Agricultural soil C dynamics under climate change are difficult to predict. Here, the authors report that experimental warming increases soil organic C stocks in conservation agriculture but not in conventional agriculture, which appears driven by soil microbial responses to no tillage and C inputs from the crops.
- Jing Tian
- , Jennifer A. J. Dungait
- & Jizhong Zhou
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| Open Access
Severe 21st-century ocean acidification in Antarctic Marine Protected Areas
Biodiversity in established or proposed Antarctic Marine Protected Areas is threatened by climate change. The authors show that projected ocean acidification is severe in Antarctic coastal waters due to strong vertical mixing of anthropogenic carbon.
- Cara Nissen
- , Nicole S. Lovenduski
- & Judith Hauck
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| Open Access
Projected soil carbon loss with warming in constrained Earth system models
Large uncertainties remain in Earth system models in predicting soil carbon-climate feedbacks. Here, the authors constrained projected soil carbon changes in ESMs using observation-derived data, and found that global soil will become a carbon source under future warming.
- Shuai Ren
- , Tao Wang
- & Shilong Piao
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| Open Access
Universal microbial reworking of dissolved organic matter along environmental gradients
Soils combat climate change by storing carbon but lose considerable amounts of carbon into downstream waters. Here a general process for how microbes transform carbon across soil-to-stream to impact its persistence in the natural environment is demonstrated.
- Erika C. Freeman
- , Erik J. S. Emilson
- & Andrew J. Tanentzap
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| Open Access
The blue carbon of southern southwest Atlantic salt marshes and their biotic and abiotic drivers
This study provides a comprehensive characterization of blue C for South American Atlantic salt marshes and reveals that environmental and biological variables are important for an understanding of blue C storage leading to lower global estimates.
- Paulina Martinetto
- , Juan Alberti
- & Raymond Ward
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| Open Access
Shoreface erosion counters blue carbon accumulation in transgressive barrier-island systems
Landward barrier migration facilitates erosion of shoreface-exposed marsh and lagoon carbon stocks at rates outpacing backbarrier carbon accumulation, thus demonstrating the ephemeral nature of blue carbon storage along transgressive coasts.
- Mary Bryan Barksdale
- , Christopher J. Hein
- & Matthew L. Kirwan
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| Open Access
Carbonate chemistry and carbon sequestration driven by inorganic carbon outwelling from mangroves and saltmarshes
Global observations from mangroves and saltmarshes unravel hidden carbon pathways. Inorganic carbon outwelling is revealed to dominate carbon budgets, impact coastal pH, and enhance the climate mitigation potential of blue carbon ecosystems.
- Gloria M. S. Reithmaier
- , Alex Cabral
- & Isaac R. Santos
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| Open Access
Increased photosynthesis during spring drought in energy-limited ecosystems
Ecosystem productivity generally declines under drought. Here, the authors show that spring droughts are linked to increases in gross primary productivity in energy-limited ecosystems in the Northern Hemisphere, and that terrestrial biosphere models tend not to capture this.
- David L. Miller
- , Sebastian Wolf
- & Trevor F. Keenan
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| Open Access
Climate warming and elevated CO2 alter peatland soil carbon sources and stability
No inherently stable peat soil carbon. Researchers found that all molecular components of peatland soil organic carbon responded to warming and eCO2, including the components presumed to be slow cycling and stable.
- Nicholas O. E. Ofiti
- , Michael W. I. Schmidt
- & Avni Malhotra
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| Open Access
Planktonic microbial signatures of sinking particle export in the open ocean’s interior
Sinking of organic particles to the deep seafloor is fundamental to ocean carbon cycling. Here, the authors investigate prokaryotic communities in sinking and suspended particles, identifying depth-specific signatures of particle export and carbon cycling processes.
- Fuyan Li
- , Andrew Burger
- & Edward F. DeLong
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| Open Access
Atlantic-origin water extension into the Pacific Arctic induced an anomalous biogeochemical event
The authors show that the appearance of anomalously low oxygen and acidified water on the Chukchi Plateau, a high-seas fishable area of the western Arctic Ocean, is associated with a change in basin-scale ocean circulation related to the recent sea ice loss.
- Shigeto Nishino
- , Jinyoung Jung
- & Sung-Ho Kang
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| Open Access
Calcium promotes persistent soil organic matter by altering microbial transformation of plant litter
Calcium drives soil organic carbon persistence through associations between organic compounds and minerals. Here, the authors expand the role of calcium by showing that it alters microbial conversion of plant carbon into persistent mineral fractions
- Itamar A. Shabtai
- , Roland C. Wilhelm
- & Johannes Lehmann
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| Open Access
The positive effect of plant diversity on soil carbon depends on climate
Soil carbon content is positively related with plant diversity in global grasslands, and this relationship is particularly strong in warm and arid climates. Plant diversity is related to soil carbon via the quality of organic matter.
- Marie Spohn
- , Sumanta Bagchi
- & Laura Yahdjian
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| Open Access
Methylphosphonate-driven methane formation and its link to primary production in the oligotrophic North Atlantic
The origin of methane in oxic waters of the open ocean remains uncertain. This study documents methylphosphonate-driven methane formation in the tropical North Atlantic, providing insights into the ecological importance of phosphonates in the carbon cycle of the oligotrophic ocean.
- Jan N. von Arx
- , Abiel T. Kidane
- & Jana Milucka
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| Open Access
Warming proportional to cumulative carbon emissions not explained by heat and carbon sharing mixing processes
This paper shows that the ratio of global warming to cumulative CO2 emissions is constant due to complex interactions of physical and biogeochemical processes, and not because heat and carbon are mixed into the ocean by similar processes.
- Nathan P. Gillett
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| Open Access
Temperature extremes of 2022 reduced carbon uptake by forests in Europe
Heat and moisture stress can reduce carbon uptake by forests. Here, the authors quantify this effect for the extreme 2022 European summer drought. The widespread reduction of photosynthesis exceeded the large local carbon release by intense fires.
- Auke M. van der Woude
- , Wouter Peters
- & Ingrid T. Luijkx
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| Open Access
Radiolytically reworked Archean organic matter in a habitable deep ancient high-temperature brine
A deep, ancient, and uranium-rich brine in South Africa reveals evidence of radiolytically oxidized kerogen and C1–C3 hydrocarbons with abiotic isotopic signatures that support a low biomass microbial community over time.
- Devan M. Nisson
- , Clifford C. Walters
- & Tullis C. Onstott
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| Open Access
The origin of suspended particulate matter in the Great Barrier Reef
This multidisciplinary fingerprinting study, using isotopic, structural and genetic fingerprints, has shown that the suspended particulate matter in the Great Barrier Reef does not have terrestrial origin but produced locally by marine phytoplankton
- Mohammad Bahadori
- , Chengrong Chen
- & Tom Stevens
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| Open Access
Earthquake-enhanced dissolved carbon cycles in ultra-deep ocean sediments
Earthquakes enhance dissolved carbon production and fuel the microbial activities in hadal trench subsurface sediments, and ultimately strengthen carbon accumulation and transformation in the subduction zones.
- Mengfan Chu
- , Rui Bao
- & Sarah Zellers
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| Open Access
Quantifying thermal adaptation of soil microbial respiration
Soil microbial respiration responses to warming have important implications for biogeochemical feedbacks. Here, using data from temperature gradients, the authors show that the rate of thermal adaptation of soil microbial respiration is lower than the rate of warming despite large community changes.
- Charlotte J. Alster
- , Allycia van de Laar
- & Louis A. Schipper
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| Open Access
Effects of drought and recovery on soil volatile organic compound fluxes in an experimental rainforest
Pugliese et al., show that severe drought and rewetting have a major impact on the capacity of rainforest soil to consume and emit volatile organic compounds (VOCs), affecting the atmospheric VOC budget and thereby atmospheric chemistry and climate.
- Giovanni Pugliese
- , Johannes Ingrisch
- & Jonathan Williams
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| Open Access
Sphagnum increases soil’s sequestration capacity of mineral-associated organic carbon via activating metal oxides
By employing large-scale comparisons across major terrestrial ecosystems and soil survey along Sphagnum gradients in distinct wetlands, Sphagnum is shown to act as an efficient rust engineer boosting the rusty carbon sink in wetlands
- Yunpeng Zhao
- , Chengzhu Liu
- & Xiaojuan Feng
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| Open Access
Mineral reactivity determines root effects on soil organic carbon
Root exudates can either promote or impede the formation of stable, mineral-associated soil organic carbon (MAOC). Yet, carbon stabilisation in MAOC is decoupled from changes in the total soil carbon pool, i.e., carbon sequestration.
- Guopeng Liang
- , John Stark
- & Bonnie Grace Waring
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| Open Access
A lignin-derived material improves plant nutrient bioavailability and growth through its metal chelating capacity
Biorefinery lignin waste has little value in the market. Here, Liu et al. find that water-soluble lignin, converted from sulfuric acid lignin, improves plant iron bioavailability and growth through a metal chelating capacity comparable to the metal chelator EDTA.
- Qiang Liu
- , Tsubasa Kawai
- & Baohai Li
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| Open Access
Multi-proxy evidence for sea level fall at the onset of the Eocene-Oligocene transition
Sea level fall with the growth of the Antarctic Ice Sheet 34 million years ago, and the shift in nutrients and carbon from continental margins to the ocean, initially provided a negative feedback that slowed global cooling and ice sheet expansion.
- Marcelo A. De Lira Mota
- , Tom Dunkley Jones
- & James Bendle
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| Open Access
Methane formation driven by light and heat prior to the origin of life and beyond
Abiotic methane and ethane formation routes in aqueous environments driven by light and heat are identified. The released hydrocarbons may have contributed to the chemical evolution of the atmosphere from prior to the origin of life until today.
- Leonard Ernst
- , Uladzimir Barayeu
- & Johannes G. Rebelein
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Matters Arising
| Open AccessOcean afforestation is a potentially effective way to remove carbon dioxide
- Wei-Lei Wang
- , Mar Fernández-Méndez
- & Minhan Dai
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Matters Arising
| Open Access
Reply to: Ocean afforestation is a potentially effective way to remove carbon dioxide
- Lennart T. Bach
- , Veronica Tamsitt
- & Philip W. Boyd
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Article
| Open Access
Leaf-level coordination principles propagate to the ecosystem scale
It is unclear whether trait trade-offs and optimality principles observed at the individual level scale up to the ecosystem level. Here, the authors show that plant trait coordination principles also predict patterns between community-level traits and ecosystem-scale processes.
- Ulisse Gomarasca
- , Mirco Migliavacca
- & Markus Reichstein
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| Open Access
Pre-aged terrigenous organic carbon biases ocean ventilation-age reconstructions in the North Atlantic
Ocean ventilation plays on global climate evolution. Here, the authors suggest that previously inferred poorly ventilated conditions in the North Atlantic were linked to enhanced pre-aged organic carbon input. Old organic carbon was mainly of terrigenous origin and exported by ice-rafting
- Jingyu Liu
- , Yipeng Wang
- & Rui Bao
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| Open Access
Photo-produced aromatic compounds stimulate microbial degradation of dissolved organic carbon in thermokarst lakes
The mechanism of photochemical and biological degradation of DOC is unclear, especially in thermokarst lakes. Here, the authors find that photo-produced aromatic compounds rather than aliphatic compounds stimulate the microbial degradation of DOC.
- Jie Hu
- , Luyao Kang
- & Leiyi Chen
Maximizing carbon sequestration potential in Chinese forests through optimal management