Fire occurrence in the Peruvian montane grasslands has increased due to climate change and agricultural expansion. This study aimed to investigate how anthropogenic activities affect soil carbon stocks in this ecosystem. Burn history (burnt 10 years ago) and grazing appeared to cause no significant change in total soil carbon, but there were significant losses to the labile carbon, suggesting a change in the soil carbon dynamics – findings that are relevant for future environmental policymakers.

The Gulf of Mexico is known to be characterized by a low abundance in phytoplankton. However, observations across the basin are scarce and prevent an accurate description of the mechanism controlling its distribution and dynamics. The recent deployment of autonomous profiling floats equipped with bio-optical sensors was a great opportunity to explore the phytoplankton in the Gulf Of Mexico. This study presents the analysis of this novel dataset.

Fjord sediments are recognised as hotspots for the burial and long-term storage of carbon. In this study, we use the Scottish fjords as a natural laboratory. Using geophysical and geochemical analysis in combination with upscaling techniques, we have generated the first full national sedimentary C inventory for a fjordic system. The results indicate that the Scottish fjords on a like-for-like basis are more effective as C stores than their terrestrial counterparts, including Scottish peatlands.

Solar radiation management (SRM) is suggested as a method to offset global warming and to buy time to reduce emissions. Here we use an Earth system model to project the impact of SRM on future ocean biogeochemistry. This work underscores the complexity of climate impacts on ocean primary production and highlights the fact that changes are driven by an integrated effect of many environmental drivers, which all change in different ways.

Algal-derived compounds allow us to make assumptions about environmental conditions in the past. In order to better understand how organisms record environmental conditions, we grew microscopic marine algae at different light intensities, salinities, and alkalinities in a temperature-controlled environment. We determined how these environmental parameters affected specific algal-derived compounds, especially their relative deuterium content, which seems to be mainly affected by salinity.

Sedimented hydrothermal vents are among the least studied deep-sea ecosystems. We compared food webs between hydrothermally active and off-vent areas of the Bransfield Strait, Antarctica. Invertebrates showed diverse feeding strategies and occupied different positions in food webs between vent and non-vent sites. Feeding and microbial diversity was lowest at vent sites. Chemosynthetic organic matter was a minimal food source at both vents and non-vents.

Recent variation in air–sea CO₂ flux in the Arctic Ocean is focused. In order to understand the relation between sea ice retreat and CO₂ chemistry, we conducted hydrographic observations in the Arctic Ocean in 2013. There were relatively high pCO₂ surface layer and low pCO₂ subsurface layer in the Canada Basin. The former was due to near-equilibration with the atmosphere and the latter primary production. Both were unlikely mixed by disturbance as large sea-ice melt formed strong stratification.

The negative effects of elevated temperature (31 °C) on larval settlement of P. damicornis was greatly tempered by diurnal temperature fluctuations, whilst diel oscillations in temperature reduced the heat stress on photo-physiology of coral recruits. Although elevated temperature greatly stimulated the growth of recruits, the daytime encounters with the maximum temperature of 33 °C in the fluctuating treatment elicited a notable reduction in calcification.

Nitrogen deposition was experimentally increased on a Scottish peat bog over a period of 13 years (2002–2015), simulating pollution from agricultural and fossil-fuel sources. We measured emissions of the greenhouse gas, nitrous oxide (N₂O), in response to the increased nitrogen input. In the plots treated with ammonium and nitrate solution, no response was seen. Areas subjected to high ammonia emitted more N₂O than expected. Differences were related to impacts on the vegetation.

Dimethyl sulfide (DMS) is a biogenic gas known to many as the 'smell of the sea' but it also stimulates the formation of clouds and cools our planet. Few data are available on its production along tropical coasts and here we quantify DMS in a sea anemone. We then use this information to simulate the release of DMS in coral reefs and highlight that we lack information on DMS-consumption processes if we were to quantify the effect of environmental change on DMS emission from tropical reefs.

This study investigated biological soil crusts (biocrusts, e.g. cyanobacteria and mosses) within an early-stage mesic subtropical forest in China, where they were particularly abundant. Biocrust covers significantly decreased soil erosion and were more effective in erosion reduction than stone cover. Hence, they play an important role in mitigating soil erosion under forest and are of particular interest for erosion control in forest plantations.

The Baltic Sea is characterized by recurring summer phytoplankton blooms, dominated by a few cyanobacterial species. These bacteria are able to use dinitrogen gas as the source for nitrogen and produce very specific lipids. We analyzed these lipids in a sediment core to study their presence over the past 7000 years. This reveals that cyanobacterial blooms have not only occurred in the last decades but were common at times when the Baltic was connected to the North Sea.