Ocean sciences articles within Nature Communications

Featured

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The means by which planktonic cyanobacteria were able to persist through the Archean despite high fluxes of UV radiation are unclear. Here, the authors show that Fe(III)-Si rich precipitates in the Archean photic zone could have provided early planktonic cyanobacteria an effective shield against UV-C radiation.

    • Aleksandra M. Mloszewska
    • , Devon B. Cole
    •  & Kurt. O Konhauser

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The termination of the Marinoan snowball Earth event marks one of the most drastic transitions in Earth history, but the oceanic response remains unclear. Here, the authors’ integrated analysis demonstrates that the ocean experienced transient but widespread euxinia following this Snowball Earth event.

    • Xianguo Lang
    • , Bing Shen
    •  & Haoran Ma

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The exact timing and magnitude of past changes in Atlantic Ocean circulation, and its relation to abrupt climate changes remains elusive. Here, the authors show a spatially coherent picture of western Atlantic circulation changes, which reveals a two-step AMOC slowdown at the beginning of the deglacial period.

    • Hong Chin Ng
    • , Laura F. Robinson
    •  & Tianyu Chen

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The Greenland Ice Sheet has increasingly lost mass over the past few decades, yet the contribution from glaciers in Northeast Greenland is difficult to quantify. Here, the authors show that the floating part of 79 North Glacier has continuously lost mass since at least 2001, with a very high annual variability.

    • Christoph Mayer
    • , Janin Schaffer
    •  & Clemens Schannwell

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The extent to which the onset of bioturbation affected global biogeochemistry during the Palaeozoic remains unclear. Here, the authors integrate bioturbation into the COPSE model, compare output with geochemical proxies, and suggest shallow burrowing contributed to a global low oxygen state during the early Cambrian.

    • Sebastiaan van de Velde
    • , Benjamin J. W. Mills
    •  & Simon W. Poulton

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Despite advances in ENSO modeling, super El Niño events remain largely unpredictable. Hameed et al. postulate that ENSO-IOD interaction is crucial for super El Niño development and identify a self-limiting factor that constrains ENSO dynamics from generating these extreme events on their own.

    • Saji N. Hameed
    • , Dachao Jin
    •  & Vishnu Thilakan

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Despite decades of research, the sequence of events leading to the deglacial atmospheric CO2 rise remains unclear. Menviel et al. show that Southern Ocean convection driven by intensified Southern Hemisphere westerlies during Heinrich stadial 1 can explain the abrupt pCO2 rise and changes in atmosphere and ocean carbon isotopes.

    • L. Menviel
    • , P. Spence
    •  & M. H. England

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The West Antarctic Ice Sheet sits atop an extensional rift system with volcano-like features, yet we do not know if any of these volcanoes are active, because identifying subglacial volcanism remains a challenge. Here, the authors find evidence in helium isotopes that a large volcanic heat source is emanating from beneath the fast-melting Pine Island Ice Glacier.

    • Brice Loose
    • , Alberto C. Naveira Garabato
    •  & Karen J. Heywood

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Diatoms account for 40% of marine primary production and their sensitivity to ocean acidification could have ecosystem-wide consequences. Here, the authors developed and applied a stress test, demonstrating that resilience of diatoms increases significantly in ocean acidification conditions.

    • Jacob J. Valenzuela
    • , Adrián López García de Lomana
    •  & Nitin S. Baliga

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Coral reefs provide significant coastal protection from storms but they have experienced significant losses. Here the authors show that the annual damages from flooding would double globally without reefs and they quantify where reefs provide the most protection to people and property.

    • Michael W. Beck
    • , Iñigo J. Losada
    •  & Felipe Fernández

  • Perspective
    | Open Access

    Estimating the magnitude of radiative and non-radiative feedbacks is key for understanding the climate dynamics of polar regions. Here the authors propose an inclusive methodology to quantify the influence of all those feedbacks, stimulating more systematic analyses in observational and model ensembles.

    • Hugues Goosse
    • , Jennifer E. Kay
    •  & Martin Vancoppenolle

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The Southern Ocean is key in sustaining the world’s ocean global circulation, yet the influence of its freshwater cycle remains unconstrained. Here, the authors use a detailed oceanographic database to evaluate surface buoyancy fluxes and reveal central roles for both precipitation and sea-ice formation and melt.

    • Violaine Pellichero
    • , Jean-Baptiste Sallée
    •  & Stephanie M. Downes

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Decadal climate prediction systems are tested against ocean reanalyses, but these reanalyses can yield differing perspectives of the ocean state. Here the authors show that in the North Atlantic, the perceived skill of a prediction system is fundamentally affected by these uncertainties.

    • Matthew B. Menary
    •  & Leon Hermanson

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Coral bleaching is often predicted via remote sensing of ocean temperatures at large scales, obscuring important reef-scale drivers and biological responses. Here, the authors use in- situ data to show that bleaching is lower globally at reef habitats with greater diurnal temperature variability.

    • Aryan Safaie
    • , Nyssa J. Silbiger
    •  & Kristen A. Davis

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Despite the broad use of barium as a proxy for past ocean export production, the underlying mechanisms of barite precipitation remain unknown. Here, the authors show, under experimental conditions, that barium bioaccumulation on bacterially produced biofilms is the crucial step for barite formation.

    • Francisca Martinez-Ruiz
    • , Fadwa Jroundi
    •  & María Teresa González-Muñoz

  • Article
    | Open Access

    It is unclear how extreme positive Indian Ocean Dipole will respond to 1.5 °C of warming. Here the authors show that the frequency of these events increases linearly with warming, doubling at 1.5 °C from the pre-industrial level, but plateaus thereafter.

    • Wenju Cai
    • , Guojian Wang
    •  & Toshio Yamagata

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The impact of plastic debris floating at the sea surface on the lowest trophic levels of the food web remains unknown. Here, using leaching experiments, the authors show that plastics release dissolved organic carbon into the ambient seawater that is rapidly taken up by marine microbes stimulating their growth.

    • Cristina Romera-Castillo
    • , Maria Pinto
    •  & Gerhard J. Herndl

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Marine heatwaves are climatic extremes with devastating and long-term impacts on marine ecosystems, fisheries and aquaculture. Here the authors use a range of ocean temperature observations to identify significant increases in marine heatwaves over the past century.

    • Eric C. J. Oliver
    • , Markus G. Donat
    •  & Thomas Wernberg

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Warm Atlantic water circulates cyclonically around the Nordic Seas while gradually cooling. Here, the authors show that the retreat of the ice edge toward Greenland has led to further transformation of this water mass, which is no longer situated underneath sea ice when transiting the western Iceland Sea in winter.

    • Kjetil Våge
    • , Lukas Papritz
    •  & G. W. K. Moore

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Understanding controls on past nitrogen budgets can improve predictions for future global biogeochemical cycling. Here, using foraminiferal pore density and δ13C, the authors present a quantitative record of deglacial nitrate from the intermediate Pacific and infer close coupling between carbon and nitrogen cycles.

    • Nicolaas Glock
    • , Zeynep Erdem
    •  & Anton Eisenhauer

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Microplastics are emerging ocean contaminants, but their fates in the ocean environment are poorly understood. Here the authors show that Antarctic krill digest micro plastics into nano plastics, thereby generating particles of a size that can cross biological and physical barriers.

    • Amanda L. Dawson
    • , So Kawaguchi
    •  & Susan M. Bengtson Nash

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The response of biogeochemical nitrogen cycle to Earth-surface oxygenation remains poorly known. Here, the authors show that aerobic nitrogen cycling was pervasive prior to the Great Oxygenation Event (GOE), but its evolution was complex, with diazotrophy prevailing and sustaining productivity after the GOE.

    • Genming Luo
    • , Christopher K. Junium
    •  & Roger E. Summons

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Modelling studies propose sea ice to be one of the underlying mechanisms for the Mid-Pleistocene transition. Here, the authors show Mid-Pleistocene subarctic North Pacific sea ice dynamics based on biomarkers and biogenic opal accumulation rates, supporting the importance of sea ice for climate change.

    • H. Detlef
    • , S. T. Belt
    •  & S. Kender

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Marine spatial planning is used to co-ordinate multiple ocean uses, and is frequently informed by tradeoffs and composite metrics. Here, Lester et al. introduce an approach that plans for multiple uses simultaneously whilst balancing individual objectives, using a case study of aquaculture development in California.

    • S. E. Lester
    • , J. M. Stevens
    •  & C. White

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The underlying regulatory mechanisms of phytoplankton assimilation and microbial oxidation of ammonium in the surface ocean are unclear. Here, using isotope labeling experiments, the authors show that ambient nitrate is a key variable bifurcating ammonium flow through assimilation or oxidation.

    • Xianhui Sean Wan
    • , Hua-Xia Sheng
    •  & Shuh-Ji Kao

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Oceanic motions associated with horizontal scales smaller than 50 km remain unresolved in climate models. Here the authors show that motions in this scale range are critical to the global transport of heat between the ocean interior and the atmosphere, and are thus a key component of the Earth’s climate.

    • Zhan Su
    • , Jinbo Wang
    •  & Dimitris Menemenlis

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Corals usually undergo single mass spawning events, however, occasionally they split reproductive effort across two months. Here, Foster et al. use 10 years of data to determine the drivers and timing of split spawning, showing that these events realign spawning with optimal environmental conditions.

    • Taryn Foster
    • , Andrew J. Heyward
    •  & James P. Gilmour

  • Article
    | Open Access

    It remains unclear whether surface water partial pressure of CO2 (pCO2) in continental shelves tracks with increasing atmospheric pCO2. Here, the authors show that pCO2 in shelf waters lags behind rising atmospheric CO2 in a number of shelf regions, suggesting shelf uptake of atmospheric CO2.

    • Goulven G. Laruelle
    • , Wei-Jun Cai
    •  & Pierre Regnier

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Marine microbial eukaryotes and zooplankton display enormous diversity and largely unexplored physiologies. Here, the authors use metatranscriptomics to analyze four organismal size fractions from open-ocean stations, providing the largest reference collection of eukaryotic transcripts from any single biome.

    • Quentin Carradec
    • , Eric Pelletier
    •  & Patrick Wincker

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Whether marine microbes form strongly differentiated communities over time remains unknown. Here, Martin-Platero and colleagues develop a time series analysis to characterize marine bacteria and Eukarya communities at a fine temporal grain, revealing cohesive but rapidly changing communities.

    • Antonio M. Martin-Platero
    • , Brian Cleary
    •  & Martin F. Polz

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Sea butterflies, or pteropods, are often presented as being at threat from ocean acidification on account of their fragile shells being susceptible to dissolution. Here the authors show that pteropods are able to perform extensive repair to damaged shells, suggesting they may not be as vulnerable as previously thought.

    • Victoria L. Peck
    • , Rosie L. Oakes
    •  & Geraint A. Tarling

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The drivers of North Atlantic phytoplankton bloom have been debated for decades, partially owing to incomplete sub-surface observations. Here, Mignot et al. use robotic sensors to provide detailed observations of developing blooms and to explore the drivers of different phases of plankton growth.

    • A. Mignot
    • , R. Ferrari
    •  & H. Claustre

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The supply of CO2 to large marine phytoplankton cells is potentially limited by their diffusive boundary layer. Here, using direct microelectrode measurements, the authors show that extracellular carbonic anhydrase acts to maintain the concentration of CO2 at the cell surface to overcome this problem.

    • Abdul Chrachri
    • , Brian M. Hopkinson
    •  & Glen L. Wheeler

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Evidence of inverted trophic pyramids in marine food webs has been enigmatic owing to lack of theoretical support. Here, Woodson et al. use metabolic and size-spectra theory to show that inverted pyramids are possible when food webs have generalist predators and consumers with large body sizes.

    • C. Brock Woodson
    • , John R. Schramski
    •  & Samantha B. Joye

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The degree of regional variability in marine dissolved organic carbon (DOC) export production is poorly constrained on a global scale. Here, the authors combine an artificial neural network and a data-constrained ocean circulation model to show that the efficiency of DOC export varies 3-fold across regions.

    • Saeed Roshan
    •  & Timothy DeVries

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Some bacteria can use inorganic phosphite and hypophosphite as sources of inorganic phosphorus. Here, the authors report crystal structures of the periplasmic proteins that bind these reduced phosphorus species and show that a P-H…π interaction between the ligand and binding site determines their specificity.

    • Claudine Bisson
    • , Nathan B. P. Adams
    •  & Andrew Hitchcock

Browse broader subjects

Browse narrower subjects

Browse Ocean sciences across other nature.com journals