Preprints
Filtering by Subject: Life Sciences
DNA sequencing, microbial sensors, and the discovery of buried mineral resources
Published: 2022-08-14
Subjects: Life Sciences
New mineral resources are critical to both sustaining human population growth and technological improvements that will enable global decarbonization. New and innovative exploration technologies that enable detection of deeply buried mineralization and host rocks are required to meet these demands. Here we show that DNA amplicon sequencing of soil microbial communities resolves anomalies in [...]
Sampling across large-scale geological gradients to study geosphere-biosphere interactions
Published: 2022-07-25
Subjects: Biogeochemistry, Earth Sciences, Environmental Sciences, Geochemistry, Life Sciences, Microbiology
Despite being one of the largest microbial ecosystems on Earth, with >1029 microbial cells, many basic open questions remain about how life exists and thrives in the deep subsurface biosphere, inside Earth’s crust. Much of this ambiguity is due to the fact that it is exceedingly difficult and (often prohibitively expensive) to directly sample the deep subsurface, requiring elaborate drilling [...]
Middle Miocene (Serravallian) wetland development on the northwest edge of Europe based on palynological analysis of the uppermost Brassington Formation of Derbyshire, United Kingdom
Published: 2022-07-23
Subjects: Life Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
The Middle Miocene was a warmer and wetter interval than present-day (Steinthorsdottir et al., 2021). In the UK, the most extensive Middle Miocene deposit is the Serravallian Kenslow Member of the Brassington Formation as exposed at Bees Nest Pit, near Brassington, Derbyshire, UK. While known to contain a diverse palynological and palaeobotanical record, the stratigraphical distribution of these [...]
Discoverability of open data is critical to Earth system science
Published: 2022-06-21
Subjects: Education, Life Sciences
There is consensus throughout the Earth system science research community that “open data” is of critical importance. However, discoverability and accessibility are often overlooked, raising the question of how useful archived, but not easily discoverable data are. As part of evaluating databases suitable for our own research data archival, we conducted a data discovery exercise (aggregators and [...]
Microcystin as a Biogeochemical Cycle: pools, fluxes, and fates of the cyanotoxin in aquatic ecosystems
Published: 2022-06-17
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
Microcystin poses a serious threat to aquatic ecosystems and human health. There is a pressing need to understand the production, movement, and storage of microcystin in lakes. We constructed a conceptual biogeochemical model for microcystin through a comprehensive literature synthesis, identifying four major pools and nine major fluxes in lakes that also connect to the terrestrial environment. [...]
Quantifying baseline costs and cataloging potential optimization strategies for kelp aquaculture carbon dioxide removal
Published: 2022-06-17
Subjects: Engineering, Life Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
To keep global surface warming below 1.5 °C by 2100, the portfolio of cost-effective CDR technologies must expand. To evaluate the potential of macroalgae CDR, we developed a kelp aquaculture bio-techno-economic model in which large quantities of kelp would be farmed at an offshore site, transported to a deep water "sink site", and then deposited below the sequestration horizon (1,000 m). We [...]
Effect of combined dry-wet irrigation and microbial dynamics on soil nutrient bioavailability
Published: 2022-05-20
Subjects: Life Sciences
Alternate wetting-drying (AWD) cultivation with implication on soil microbiome, nutritional dynamics and rice yield during pre-monsoon (boro) and monsoon (aman) season are not well studied. In the present 4-year field study the impact of AWD (in pre-monsoon season) is compared with conventional mode of irrigation (i.e. flooded field in monsoon season). The release of soil nutrients into the [...]
Experimental evaluation of the effects of bigmouth buffalo (Ictiobus cyprinellus) density on shallow lake ecosystems
Published: 2022-05-19
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
Bigmouth buffalo (Ictiobus cyprinellus) is a large-bodied planktivore inhabiting shallow waterways in North America and subjected to unregulated harvest throughout much of their native range. Despite high harvest pressure on some populations, we know little about the ecosystem-level effects of lowering bigmouth buffalo densities. To evaluate the effect of bigmouth buffalo density on lower trophic [...]
Cutting down trees does not build prosperity: On the continued decoupling of Amazon deforestation and economic development in 21st century Brazil
Published: 2022-05-13
Subjects: Environmental Studies, Forest Management, Life Sciences, Nature and Society Relations, Remote Sensing
Background and aims: We present evidence examining spatial and temporal patterns in forest cover changes and economic progress in Brazilian Amazonia. Specifically we tested two predictions embedded in arguments used by influential interest groups: i) where there is less forest cover economic progress should increase and ii) areas with most recent deforestation should have increased economic [...]
Plant-microbe symbiosis widens the habitability range of the Daisyworld
Published: 2022-05-04
Subjects: Life Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Plant-microbe symbiosis is pervasive in the Earth's ecosystems and dates back to the early land colonisation by plants. Mutualistic partnership with rhizobia bacteria and mycorrhizal fungi promotes plant nutrition, growth and diversity, impacting important ecosystem functions. However, how the global behaviour and dynamical properties of an ecosystem are modified by plant-microbe symbiosis is [...]
Using water footprint concepts for water security assessment of a basin under anthropogenic pressures
Published: 2022-04-27
Subjects: Life Sciences
The evaluation of water shortages and pollution levels is crucial for watershed management and sustainable development. This paper proposes a water footprint (WF) sustainability assessment approach to analyse water security in a river basin under human pressures. The methodology involves a comprehensive assessment of the current water security at different spatial and temporal levels, and [...]
Maars, tuff rings, and tuff cones at the Manyara rift escarpment, Tanzania.
Published: 2022-04-14
Subjects: Life Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
About 350 maar craters, tuff rings, and tuff cones are spread along the Manyara rift escarpment, and clustered around the Hanang and Kwahara volcanoes in North Tanzania. They lie in the East African Rift, an active extensional setting, where the magma composition is moderately to highly alkaline and carbonate-rich. We present newly-collected depositional characteristic observations, grain size [...]
Can fiddler crab bioturbation activity in situ modify the distribution of microplastics in sediments and the influence on their bioaccumulation?
Published: 2022-03-25
Subjects: Life Sciences
Fiddler crabs are known as “eco-engineers” who maintain habitat health through sediment bioturbation, being able to interact with microplastics (MP) due to their daily contact with the sediment. Here, we evaluated MP contamination in mangrove substrates in Isla del Carmen, southern Gulf of Mexico, comparing MP content between burrows and pellets resulting from bioturbation and MP bioaccumulation [...]
Contribution of zooplankton nutrient recycling and effects on phytoplankton size structure in a hypereutrophic reservoir
Published: 2022-02-17
Subjects: Biochemistry, Biology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Other Life Sciences
Consumer nutrient recycling influences aquatic ecosystem functioning by altering the movement and transformation of nutrients. In hypereutrophic reservoirs, zooplankton nutrient recycling has been considered negligible due to high concentrations of available nutrients. A comparative analysis (Moody and Wilkinson, 2019) found that zooplankton communities in hypereutrophic lakes are dominated by [...]
Sediment phosphorus composition controls hot spots and hot moments of internal loading in a temperate reservoir
Published: 2022-02-05
Subjects: Life Sciences, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
Phosphorus (P) flux across the sediment-water interface in lakes and reservoirs responds to external perturbations within the context of sediment characteristics. Lentic ecosystems experience profound spatiotemporal heterogeneity in the mechanisms that control sediment P fluxes, likely producing hot spots and hot moments of internal loading. However, spatiotemporal variation in P fluxes remains [...]