A simple modification to the existing methodology for calculating biological production in global ocean model is proposed here. A space- and time-varying production depth is found in the upper few metres of the ocean based on sunlight and nutrient availability. This new method is tested for Indian Ocean biological production zones. With this new method the carbon cycling in the surface of the Indian Ocean is simulated better in the model. A reason for the improvement is detailed in the paper.

Ongoing human impact transforms habitats into surfaces lacking higher vegetation. Here, biological soil crusts (BSCs) provide ecosystem services like soil creation and carbon uptake. To understand the functioning of these areas, we examined the physiological capability of early successional BSCs. We found features enabling BSCs to cope with varying climatic stresses. BSCs are important carbon fixers independent of the dominating organism. We provide baseline data for modeling carbon fluxes.

Straw incorporation increases soil organic carbon (SOC) stocks and crop yields in experimental trials across China, regardless of the climate or land use. This conclusion is based on a wide range of soils and climate conditions and suggests that farmers across the world may use this simple management tool to increase their outputs by improving the quality of their outputs by improving the quality of their soil, while mitigating climate change.

We show that plant functional diversity significantly affects climate–vegetation interaction and the climate–vegetation system stability in response to external forcing using a series of coupled land–atmosphere simulation. Our findings raise the question of how realistically Earth system models can actually represent climate–vegetation interaction, considering the incomplete representation of plant functional diversity in the current generation of land surface models.

Climate warming in the Arctic results in thawing of permafrost deposits. This promotes the accessibility of freeze-locked old organic matter (OM) accumulated during the past. Characterizing OM of different depositional ages, we were able to show that OM from last glacial Yedoma deposits possess the highest potential to provide organic substrates such as acetate for microbial greenhouse gas production and therefore to accelerate the carbon–climate feedback cycle during ongoing global warming.

Sea ice cover is declining across the polar regions, but its importance for the food webs is largely unknown. We used certain diatom metabolites to trace ice-derived and ice-conditioned algae production within pelagic grazers. Our results show that zooplankton can feed on ice algae long after their release into the water column, and that the marginal ice zone can act as an important feeding ground. Predictions on future functioning of polar ecosystems need to consider such subtle relationships.

Precipitation and N deposition significantly increased R_s, but warming decreased R_s, which depended mainly on the variation of soil moisture. The interactive response of R_s to combinations of the factors was much less than that of any single factor, and the interactions of multiple factors largely reduced between-year variation of R_s more than any single factor, suggesting that the carbon cycle in temperate deserts could be profoundly influenced by positive carbon–climate feedbacks.

We extensively tested and refined a direct, high-frequency free-water CO₂ measurement method to study the lake net ecosystem productivity. The method was first proposed in 2008, but neglected ever since. With high-frequency direct methods, we can calculate the lake productivity more precisely, and parameterise its dependency on environmental variables. This helps us expand our knowledge on the carbon cycle in the water, and leads to a better integration of water bodies in carbon budgets.

We found larger shrub leaf C, C : N and lower leaf N, N : P levels compared to other terrestrial ecosystems. Alpine shrubs exhibited the greatest leaf C at low temperatures, whereas the largest leaf N and P occurred in valley deciduous shrubs. The large heterogeneity in nutrient uptake and physiological adaptation of shrub types to environments explained the largest fraction of leaf C : N : P variations, while climate indirectly affected leaf C : N : P via its interactive effects on shrub type or soil.

The trophic preference (i.e., food resources and trophic levels) of different copepod groups was assessed along a salinity gradient in the temperate estuarine Gwangyang Bay of Korea, based on a seasonal investigation of taxonomic results in 2015 and stable isotope analysis incorporating multiple linear regression models. Our results depict a simple energy flow of the planktonic food web of Gwangyang Bay.

Understanding the global carbon cycling in the marginal seas is crucial to realize the climate–carbon link. Here we characterized the source of suspended particulate matter along the deep chlorophyll maximum layers and found that organic matter in these layers was largely derived from the primary production. Also this layer is insignificantly influenced by the land-derived organic matter. Our results may have a direct implication on the application of isotopic mixing models in marine sediments.

We report a detailed mechanistic investigation of the impact of Hurricane Arthur on the CO₂ cycling on the Scotian Shelf. We can show that in contrast to common thinking, the deepening of the surface during the summer months can lead to increased CO₂ uptake as carbon-poor waters from subsurface water are brought up to the surface. Only during prolonged storm events is the deepening of the mixed layer strong enough to bring the (expected) carbon-rich water to the surface.

Oceanographic campaigns to measure biogeochemical processes popularly deploy drifters with onboard incubations to stay in a single body of water. Here, we aggregate physical data taken during such a cruise, OUTPACE, to independently test in a new approach whether the drifter really stayed in what can be considered a single biological or chemical environment. This study concludes that future campaigns would benefit from similar data collection and analysis to validate their sampling strategy.

The northern Australian savannah grasslands encompass 1.5 million square kilometres, where naturally occurring cyanobacteria cover the soil surface. During the wet season, photosynthetic cyanobacteria continually absorb nitrogen from the air and produce a nutrient-rich slime. This bioactive slime formed a protective biofilm on the soil in-between grass plants and provided nitrogen in a plant-available form. Cyanobacterial species richness increased biofertilisation and boosted soil fertility.

Thanks to decreases in CFC concentrations, N₂O is now the third-most important greenhouse gas, and the dominant contributor to stratospheric ozone depletion. Here we estimate the ocean–atmosphere N₂O flux. We find that an estimate based on observations alone has a large uncertainty. By combining observations and a range of model simulations we find that the uncertainty is much reduced to 2.45 ± 0.8 Tg N yr⁻¹, and better constrained and at the lower end of the estimate in the latest IPCC report.

We studied the diel fluctuations of dissolved organic carbon (DOC) concentrations in a small stream in Luxembourg. We identified an increased proportion of DOC from terrestrial sources as responsible for the peaks in DOC in the afternoon. Warmer water temperatures in the riparian zone in the afternoon increased the amount of water flowing towards the stream. Consequently, an increased amount of DOC-rich water from the riparian zone was entering the stream.

Growing shore-platform stromatolites are increasingly found on modern rocky coasts. Stromatolites are very similar to Archean and Proterozoic stromatolites. A study of modern stromatolites may shed light on the conditions that existed on the early Earth and other planets and possibly provide information on how life began.

Microcoleus vaginatus, a filamentous cyanobacteria, is a primary producer and pioneer in desert biological soil crusts (BSCs). Previous studies have suggested that biopolymers play a central role in M. vaginatus' ability to survive in arid conditions. We have developed a genome-scale metabolic model with experimental validation to elucidate the mechanism of this phenomenon and predict survival during pulsed-activity events, providing a basis for future modeling of BSCs.

Silicon (Si) plays an important role in soil processes. If the influence of forest vegetation in the Si cycle has been widely examined, no study has investigated the specific role of fine tree roots. This study reveals that biological processes play a predominant role in the Si cycle in temperate forest ecosystems, while the geochemical processes seems to be limited. About 99 % of the Si taken up by trees each year returns to the soil via the degradation of litterfall and fine dead roots.

We developed the model QUALity-NETwork (QUAL-NET) to simulate water quality variations in large drainage networks. This model is accurate enough to represent processes occurring over short periods of time such as storm events and helps to fully understand water quality variations in stream networks in the context of climate change and varying human pressures. It was tested on the Loire River and provided good performances and a new understanding of the functioning of the river.