The youngest fossil record is a crucial source of data on the history of marine ecosystems and their long-term alteration by humans. However, human activities that reshape ecosystems also alter sedimentary and biological processes that control the formation of the geological archives recording those impacts. Thus, humans have been transforming the marine fossil record in ways that affect our ability to reconstruct past ecological and climate dynamics.

The timing of the net primary production annual maxima in the North Atlantic in the period 1750–2100 is investigated using two Earth system models and the high-emissions scenario SSP5-8.5. It is found that, for most of the region, the annual maxima occur progressively earlier, with the most change occurring after the year 2000. Shifts in the seasonality of the primary production may impact the entire ecosystem, which highlights the need for long-term monitoring campaigns in this area.

Here, we generated chronosequences of leaf area index (LAI) and surface albedo as a function of time since fire to demonstrate the differences in the characteristic trajectories of post-fire biophysical changes among seven forest types and 21 level III ecoregions of the western United States (US) using satellite data from different sources. We also demonstrated how climate played the dominant role in the recovery of LAI and albedo 10 and 20 years after wildfire events in the western US.

Bacterial tetraethers have important implications for palaeoclimate reconstruction. However, fundamental understanding of how these lipids are transformed from land to sea and which environmental factors influence their distributions is lacking. Here, we investigate the sources of brGDGTs and brGMGTs and the factors controlling their distributions in a large dataset (n=237). We propose a novel proxy (RIX) to trace riverine runoff, which is applicable in modern systems and in paleorecord.

Chinese subtropical forest ecosystems are an extremely important component of global forest ecosystems and hence crucial for the global carbon cycle and regional climate change. However, there is still great uncertainty in the relationship between subtropical forest carbon sequestration and its drivers. We provide first quantitative estimates of the individual and interactive effects of different drivers on the gross primary productivity changes of various subtropical forest types in China.

Greenness of the Amazon forest fluctuated during the 2015–2016 drought, but no satisfactory explanation has been found. Based on water storage, temperature, and atmospheric moisture demand, we developed a method to delineate the regions where forests were under stress. These drought-affected regions were mainly identified at the beginning and end of the drought, resulting in below-average greenness. For the months in between, without stress, greenness responded positively to intense sunlight.

To keep the Paris agreement goals within reach, negative emissions are necessary. They can be achieved with mitigation techniques, such as reforestation, which remove CO₂ from the atmosphere. While governments have pinned their hopes on them, there is not yet a good set of tools to objectively determine whether negative emissions do what they promise. Here we show how satellite measurements of plant fluorescence are useful in detecting carbon uptake due to reforestation and vegetation regrowth.

Soil microbes are the driving engine for biogeochemical cycles of carbon and nutrients. This study applies a microbial-explicit model to quantify bacteria and fungal biomass carbon in soils from 1901 to 2016. Results showed substantial increases in bacterial and fungal biomass carbon over the past century, jointly influenced by vegetation growth and soil temperature and moisture. This pioneering century-long estimation offers crucial insights into soil microbial roles in global carbon cycling.

Ocean alkalinity enhancement aims to increase atmospheric CO₂ sequestration by adding alkaline materials to the ocean. We assessed the environmental effects of olivine and steel slag powder on coastal plankton. Overall, slag is more efficient than olivine in releasing total alkalinity and, thus, in its ability to sequester CO₂. Slag also had less environmental effect on the enclosed plankton communities when considering its higher CO₂ removal potential based on this 3-week experiment.

Ash particles from wildfires are rich in phosphorus (P), a crucial nutrient that constitutes a limiting factor in 43 % of the world's land ecosystems. We hypothesize that wildfire ash could directly contribute to plant nutrition. We find that fire ash application boosts the growth of plants, but the only way plants can uptake P from fire ash is through the foliar uptake pathway and not through the roots. The fertilization impact of fire ash was also maintained under elevated levels of CO₂.

Salt marshes play a big role in global carbon (C) storage, and C stock estimates are used to predict future changes. However, spatial and temporal gradients in C burial rates over the landscape exist due to variations in water inundation, dominant plant species and stage of growth, and tidal action. We quantified soil C concentrations in soil cores across time and space beside several porewater biogeochemical variables and discussed the controls on variability in soil C in salt marsh ecosystems.