Search results for "carbon cycle"

Enrichment of Bacterioplankton Able to Utilize One-Carbon and Methylated Compounds in the Coastal Pacific Ocean

2018

International audience; Understanding the temporal variations and succession of bacterial communities involved in the turnover of one-carbon and methylated compounds is necessary to better predict bacterial impacts on the marine carbon cycle and air-sea carbon fluxes. The ability of the local bacterioplankton community to exploit one-carbon and methylated compounds as main source of bioavailable carbon during a productive and less productive period was assessed through enrichment experiments. Surface seawater was amended with methanol and trimethylamine-N-oxide (TMAO), and bacterial abundance, production, oxygen consumption, as well as methanol turnover and growth rates of putative methylot…

Arctic aerosols and the ‘Divergence Problem’ in dendroclimatology

2021

Considering the importance and complexity of natural (e.g., volcanic eruptions and wildfires) and anthropogenic (e.g., mining, oil and shipping industries) aerosol emissions to Arctic warming is particularly timely given the recent temperature extremes recorded at high-northern latitudes (Cohen et al., 2020; Overland and Wang, 2021). Despite our knowledge about the observed and modelled climatic effects of rising Arctic aerosol concentrations (Schmale et al., 2021), which may exhibit regional and seasonal differences and call for diverse research priorities from local to circumpolar scales, we feel that the ecological consequences of an aerosol-induced reduction in surface irradiance (i.e.,…

Deep-Sea Bioluminescence Blooms after Dense Water Formation at the Ocean Surface

2013

The deep ocean is the largest and least known ecosystem on Earth. It hosts numerous pelagic organisms, most of which are able to emit light. Here we present a unique data set consisting of a 2.5-year long record of light emission by deep-sea pelagic organisms, measured from December 2007 to June 2010 at the ANTARES underwater neutrino telescope in the deep NW Mediterranean Sea, jointly with synchronous hydrological records. This is the longest continuous time-series of deep-sea bioluminescence ever recorded. Our record reveals several weeks long, seasonal bioluminescence blooms with light intensity up to two orders of magnitude higher than background values, which correlate to changes in th…

A broader model for C 4 photosynthesis evolution in plants inferred from the goosefoot family (Chenopodiaceae s.s.)

2012

C 4 photosynthesis is a fascinating example of parallel evolution of a complex trait involving multiple genetic, biochemical and anatomical changes. It is seen as an adaptation to deleteriously high levels of photorespiration. The current scenario for C 4 evolution inferred from grasses is that it originated subsequent to the Oligocene decline in CO 2 levels, is promoted in open habitats, acts as a pre-adaptation to drought resistance, and, once gained, is not subsequently lost. We test the generality of these hypotheses using a dated phylogeny of Amaranthaceae s.l. (including Chenopodiaceae), which includes the largest number of C 4 lineages in eudicots. The oldest chenopod C 4 lineage da…

Orbital chronology of the lower-middle Aptian: palaeoenvironmental implications (Serre Chaitieu section, Vocontian Basin).

2013

4 pages; International audience; A detailed cyclostratigraphic study conducted on several proxies including spectral gamma ray, magnetic susceptibility, clay minerals, and carbonate content suggests that the return to equilibrium in the carbon cycle after the major disturbance linked with Oceanic Anoxic Event 1a occurred in about 2 Myr. The minimum duration of the D. furcata zone is estimated at 0.46 Myr and that of the E. subnodosocostatum zone at 1.45 Myr. Strengthening of the obliquity record in the furcata zone confirms the cooling that characterizes this period.

Science Advances

2019

River ecosystems receive and process vast quantities of terrestrial organic carbon, the fate of which depends strongly on microbial activity. Variation in and controls of processing rates, however, are poorly characterized at the global scale. In response, we used a peer-sourced research network and a highly standardized carbon processing assay to conduct a global-scale field experiment in greater than 1000 river and riparian sites. We found that Earth’s biomes have distinct carbon processing signatures. Slow processing is evident across latitudes, whereas rapid rates are restricted to lower latitudes. Both the mean rate and variability decline with latitude, suggesting temperature constrai…

Energetic coupling between plastids and mitochondria drives CO2 assimilation in diatoms.

2015

International audience; Diatoms are one of the most ecologically successful classes of photosynthetic marine eukaryotes in the contemporary oceans. Over the past 30 million years, they have helped to moderate Earth's climate by absorbing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, sequestering it via the biological carbon pump and ultimately burying organic carbon in the lithosphere. The proportion of planetary primary production by diatoms in the modern oceans is roughly equivalent to that of terrestrial rainforests. In photosynthesis, the efficient conversion of carbon dioxide into organic matter requires a tight control of the ATP/NADPH ratio which, in other photosynthetic organisms, relies prin…

Inverted responses of the carbon cycle to orbital forcing in Mesozoic peri‐platform marginal basins: implications for astrochronology

2020

International audience; Astrochronology depends on the faithful record of insolation forcing in climatic proxies, including the carbon isotope composition measured on bulk carbonates (δ13Ccarb). In marginal basins close to carbonate platforms, the source of carbonate is varied, which can impact the record of the astronomical cycles in the δ13Ccarb signal. We compare here the δ13Ccarb values together with detrital and weathering proxies before and during a crisis in the platform carbonate production (Weissert event, Valanginian, ~135 Ma) to document how a change in the carbonate source can affect the record of the orbital forcing by the carbon isotope system. The level of burial diagenesis w…

2015

Abstract. The Amazon Basin plays key roles in the carbon and water cycles, climate change, atmospheric chemistry, and biodiversity. It has already been changed significantly by human activities, and more pervasive change is expected to occur in the coming decades. It is therefore essential to establish long-term measurement sites that provide a baseline record of present-day climatic, biogeochemical, and atmospheric conditions and that will be operated over coming decades to monitor change in the Amazon region, as human perturbations increase in the future. The Amazon Tall Tower Observatory (ATTO) has been set up in a pristine rain forest region in the central Amazon Basin, about 150 km nor…

The impact of geoengineering on vegetation in experiment G1 of the GeoMIP

2015

Solar Radiation Management (SRM) has been proposed as a mean to partly counteract global warming. The Geoengineering Model Intercomparison Project (GeoMIP) has simulated the climate consequences of a number of SRM techniques. Thus far, the effects on vegetation have not yet been thoroughly analyzed. Here the vegetation response to the idealized GeoMIP G1 experiment from eight fully coupled Earth system models (ESMs) is analyzed, in which a reduction of the solar constant counterbalances the radiative effects of quadrupled atmospheric CO2 concentrations (abrupt4 × CO2). For most models and regions, changes in net primary productivity (NPP) are dominated by the increase in CO2, via the CO2 fe…