Forest soils have a steep carbon gradient from the forest floor to the mineral soil, indicating that carbon is prevented from entry into the soil. Wild boar are effective in mixing the soil when searching for food. In a 6–year field study, we found no significant changes in soil organic carbon stocks in the wild boar treatment plots. However, around 50 % of forest floor carbon was transferred with mixing into mineral soil carbon and increased the stabilised fraction of soil organic carbon.

The availability of iron (Fe) affects phytoplankton growth in large parts of the ocean. Shelf sediments, particularly in oxygen minimum zones, are a major source of Fe and other essential micronutrients, such as cobalt (Co) and manganese (Mn). We observed enhanced concentrations of Fe, Co, and Mn corresponding with low oxygen concentrations along the Mauritanian shelf, indicating that the projected future decrease in oxygen concentrations may result in increases in Fe, Mn, and Co concentrations.

Fjords are known sinks of organic carbon (OC); however, little is known about the long-term fate of the OC stored in these sediments. The reason for this knowledge gap is the post-depositional degradation of OC. This study uses benthic foraminifera (microorganisms with calcite shells) to discriminate between post-depositional OC degradation and actual OC burial and accumulation in fjordic sediments, as foraminifera would only preserve the latter information in their assemblage composition.

Our micropaleontological analyses on three cores from New Jersey (USA) show that the late Maastrichtian warming event (66.4–66.1 Ma), characterized by a ~ 4.0 °C warming of sea waters on the New Jersey paleoshelf, resulted in a disruption of phytoplankton communities and a stressed benthic ecosystem. This increased ecosystem stress during the latest Maastrichtian potentially primed global ecosystems for the subsequent mass extinction following the Cretaceous–Paleogene boundary impact.

Small farm reservoirs are key features within agricultural landscapes, yet these waterbodies can contribute substantial greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions to the atmosphere. This study assessed some of the environmental factors that may impact the production of these GHGs. We found promise that farm reservoirs can act as net greenhouse gas sinks and identified some of the key water quality, landscape, and design features that may support GHG mitigation.

This study shows a core bacterial microbiome with a small proportion of shared operational taxonomic units of common sequences among all oil reservoirs. Dominant methanogenesis shifts from the hydrogenotrophic pathway in water phase to the acetoclastic pathway in the oil phase at high temperatures, but the opposite is true at low temperatures. There are also major functional metabolism differences between the two phases for amino acids, hydrocarbons, and carbohydrates.

Microbial community composition and diversity in freshwater habitats are much less studied compared to marine and soil communities. This study presents the first assessment of microbial communities of the Rajang River, the longest river in Malaysia, expanding our knowledge of microbial ecology in tropical regions. Areas surrounded by oil palm plantations showed the lowest diversity and other signs of anthropogenic impacts included the presence of CFB groups as well as probable algal blooms.

The effects of seabird presence on permafrost peat evolution in NW Greenland were studied by tracing changes in stable C and N isotope composition along the path from bird sources into permafrost peat. The permafrost growth was triggered by organic matter and nutrient input since the neoglacial cooling and concurrent polynya establishment. The study deals with the complex response of biologic and permafrost dynamics to High Arctic climatic and oceanographic conditions of the Late Holocene.

The N–transformation rates and N–related functional gene abundance were surveyed in a tropical forest soil with experimental N additions. The C : N ratio was the determinant factor for N transformations in the dry season while the microbial biomass was the one in the wet season. This study also found that high N addition imposed significant positive effects on the functional gene abundance of AOA amoA and nirK but negative effects on that of AOB amoA and nosZ.

Chronic deep bottom trawling in the Gulf of Castellammare (SW Mediterranean) erodes large volumes of sediment, exposing over-century-old sediment depleted in organic matter. Nevertheless, the arrival of fresh and nutritious sediment recovers superficial organic matter in trawling grounds and leads to high turnover rates, partially and temporarily mitigating the impacts of bottom trawling. However, this deposition is ephemeral and it will be swiftly eroded by the passage of the next trawler.