Preprints
Filtering by Subject: Life Sciences
Ecological Ramifications of Phosphate Extraction and Use
Published: 2024-09-21
Subjects: Life Sciences
Phosphorus (P) is a finite resource located within certain geologic reserves around the world. Morocco and the Western Sahara together account for roughly 75% of reserves, raising questions of how to more sustainably use this precious resource. Phosphorus is mined from rock and eventually converted into usable fertilizer, which is applied to croplands. This study aims, by adopting a global [...]
The fate of nitrogen in deep magma oceans
Published: 2024-09-18
Subjects: Life Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Nitrogen is important in planetary evolution because it is essential to life and the most abundant element in Earth’s atmosphere. Here, we investigate how core formation affects the distribution of N within accreting terrestrial planets. We conducted laser-heated diamond anvil cell experiments (LH-DAC) over a wide range of high pressure–temperature-compositional (PTX) conditions (38–103 GPa, [...]
Private protected areas exhibit greater bias towards unproductive land compared to public protected areas
Published: 2024-09-13
Subjects: Biodiversity, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Environmental Studies, Geography, Life Sciences, Social and Behavioral Sciences
Globally, private protected areas (PPAs) have become an important tool for biodiversity conservation. While they are expanding in size and number, there is limited evidence on their potential impact on avoiding biodiversity loss, and how this impact compares to the public protected areas (PAs). The impact of protection is measured as the actual biodiversity outcome within the area protected [...]
Resilient foods for preventing global famine: a review of food supply interventions for global catastrophic food shocks including nuclear winter and infrastructure collapse
Published: 2024-09-12
Subjects: Agricultural Science, Agriculture, Animal Sciences, Aquaculture and Fisheries Life Sciences, Chemical Engineering, Engineering, Food Science, Life Sciences, Plant Sciences, Risk Analysis
Global catastrophic threats to the food system upon which human society depends are numerous. A nuclear war or volcanic eruption could collapse agricultural yields by inhibiting crop growth. Nuclear electromagnetic pulses or extreme pandemics could disrupt industry and mass-scale food supply by unprecedented levels. Global food storage is limited. What can be done? This article presents the state [...]
Chemistry Analysis for the Origin of Life in Protoplanetary Disks
Published: 2024-08-30
Subjects: Life Sciences
The primary purpose of this review is to present chemistry analysis. In this theoretical study exploring the origin of life, the main argument is that life on Earth may not have originated on Earth but rather in the protoplanetary disk at the time of the solar system's formation. This analysis focuses on the discoveries and problems encountered by scientists in the limited field of origin of life [...]
Life Beyond Biology: Perspectives on the Earth as an Organism
Published: 2024-08-28
Subjects: Life Sciences
The idea that planet Earth can be considered as an organism is discussed in perspective. To this end, we provide a historical context for the concept of life, as well as a summary of important advances in planetary science. We show that autonomy, which has been described as the fundamental property of living organisms, is consistent with the operation of the whole planet coupling (WPC), which in [...]
Spatial Variability of Water Temperature within the White River Basin, Mount Rainier National Park, Washington
Published: 2024-08-16
Subjects: Life Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Water temperature is a primary control on the occurrence and distribution of cold-water species. Rivers draining Mount Rainier in western Washington, including the White River along its northern flank, support several cold-water fish populations, but the spatial distribution of water temperatures, particularly during late-summer base flow between August and September, and the climatic, [...]
Seaweed Cultivation: A Cost-Effective Strategy for Food Production in a Global Catastrophe
Published: 2024-08-02
Subjects: Agriculture, Analysis, Life Sciences, Spatial Science
An event such as a large volcanic eruption, nuclear winter or asteroid/comet impact has the potential to seriously reduce incoming sunlight, impacting both the global climate and conventional crop yields. This could have catastrophic impacts on human nutrition, unless the food system can adapt. One possible answer is seaweed, where growth is projected to be less impacted (or even enhanced) by the [...]
Taphonomic Controls on a Multi-Element Skeletal Fossil Record
Published: 2024-08-02
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Life Sciences, Paleobiology, Paleontology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Sedimentology
Animals with multi-element skeletons, including the vertebrates, echinoderms, and arthropods, are some of the most biodiverse and ecologically important animal groups. Understanding the relative impact of the myriad geological and biological factors which impact on the quality of multi-element skeletal fossils is thus crucial for disentangling perceived changes in biodiversity through time and [...]
Recent advances in the bioremediation of soils contaminated with heavy metals
Published: 2024-07-18
Subjects: Engineering, Life Sciences
Due to the increase in the human population, environmental pollution has increased drastically. Heavy metal pollution of the soil is one of these factors. Because of their industrial importance and advantages, heavy metals are often used in various chemical, paint, and battery industries. Bioremediation is a potential approach for addressing heavy metal soil contamination. This review covers [...]
Exploration of Climate Data and Temperature Forecasting using Machine Learning
Published: 2024-06-28
Subjects: Life Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
In this short communication, a concept has been presented to model geographical data to predict future temperature of Tabuk, region. Machine learning has been applied to the weather station data to develop a prediction model. The preliminary results are promising and encouraging and are envisaging to further this research towards the determination of unknown temperature rise in the region. This [...]
Regional differences in soil stable isotopes and vibrational features at depth in three California Grasslands
Published: 2024-06-27
Subjects: Life Sciences
There are major gaps in our understanding of how Mediterranean ecosystems will respond to anticipated changes in precipitation. In particular, limited data exists on the response of deep soil carbon dynamics to changes in climate. In this study we wanted to examine carbon and nitrogen dynamics between topsoils and subsoils along a precipitation gradient of California grasslands. We focused on [...]
Focus of the IPCC Assessment Reports Has Shifted to Lower Temperatures
Published: 2024-06-22
Subjects: Life Sciences
We focus on how different global temperature increases represented in IPCC reports have shifted over time. While the first four assessment reports had a roughly equal focus on temperatures above and below 2°C, the more recent fifth and sixth assessment reports have a considerably stronger focus on warming below 2°C. This is concerning as warming above 2°C is more likely given current emissions [...]
Enhanced Petrogenic Organic Carbon Oxidation during the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum
Published: 2024-06-21
Subjects: Life Sciences
The Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM; ~56 Ma) is a hyperthermal event associated with the rapid input of carbon into the ocean-atmosphere system. The oxidation of petrogenic organic carbon (OCpetro) may have released additional carbon dioxide (CO2), thereby prolonging the PETM. However, proxy-based estimates of OCpetro oxidation are unavailable due to the lack of suitable techniques. Raman [...]
A method for evaluating sediment-induced macroinvertebrate community composition changes in Idaho streams
Published: 2024-06-15
Subjects: Life Sciences
This study developed stream surface fine sediment < 2 mm (SF) and macroinvertebrate fine sediment biotic index (FSBI) benchmarks and an application framework to test for sediment-induced macroinvertebrate community composition changes in 1st-4th order Idaho streams. FSBI reference benchmarks were calculated as the 25th percentile FSBI value among reference sites within three ecoregion-based [...]