Preprints
Filtering by Subject: Biogeochemistry
Plant controls over tropical wetland nitrous oxide dynamics: a review
Published: 2024-03-06
Subjects: Biogeochemistry, Earth Sciences, Environmental Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Tropical wetlands are an important global source of greenhouse gas emissions, including nitrous oxide, a potent and long-last greenhouse gas. Tropical wetland ecosystems can be highly heterogeneous, featuring a variety of vegetation types, from grasses through to palms and mangroves. A variety of plant-mediated processes can exert key controls over wetland plant/soil nitrogen transportation and [...]
Scaling High-resolution Soil Organic Matter Composition to Improve Predictions of Potential Soil Respiration Across the Continental United States
Published: 2024-02-13
Subjects: Biogeochemistry, Soil Science
Despite the importance of microbial respiration of soil organic matter (SOM) in regulating carbon flux between soils and the atmosphere, soil carbon (C) cycling models remain primarily based on climate and soil properties, leading to large uncertainty in their predictions. Molecular data have long been proposed as a promising avenue for resolving modeling errors, but evidence for improved [...]
Graph Characterization of Higher Order Structure in Atmospheric Chemical Reaction Mechanisms
Published: 2024-02-13
Subjects: Atmospheric Sciences, Biogeochemistry, Environmental Chemistry, Other Applied Mathematics, Other Environmental Sciences
Atmospheric chemical reactions play an important role in air quality and climate change. While the structure and dynamics of individual chemical reactions are fairly well understood, the emergent properties of the entire atmospheric chemical system, which can involve many different species that participate in many different reactions, are not well described. In this work, we leverage [...]
Subsurface microbial community structure shifts along the geological features of the Central American Volcanic Arc
Published: 2024-02-04
Subjects: Biodiversity, Biogeochemistry, Earth Sciences, Environmental Microbiology and Microbial Ecology Life Sciences, Geochemistry, Geology, Microbiology, Volcanology
Subduction of the Cocos and Nazca oceanic plates beneath the Caribbean plate drives the upward movement of deep fluids enriched in carbon, nitrogen, sulfur, and iron along the Central American Volcanic Arc (CAVA). These compounds fuel diverse subsurface microbial communities that in turn alter the distribution, redox state, and isotopic composition of these compounds. Microbial community [...]
Microbial indicators and detection of Cu-sulfide ore mineralization
Published: 2024-01-02
Subjects: Biogeochemistry, Earth Sciences, Geochemistry, Geology, Other Earth Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Soil Science
Rapid electrification of society is placing unprecedented demand on critical mineral and metal resources. New strategies and technologies are thus needed to promote mineral discovery in regions where deposits are likely buried deep under soil and glacial till. We show that microbial communities from different soil types change in composition in response to amendment with copper. We also show [...]
Convergence in simulating global soil organic carbon by structurally different models after data assimilation
Published: 2023-11-20
Subjects: Biogeochemistry, Earth Sciences
The current generation of biogeochemical models produce large uncertainty in carbon-climate feedback projections. Structural differences in these models have been identified as a major source of inter-model uncertainties when simulating soil organic carbon (SOC) dynamics worldwide. However, parameterization could also play a role, particularly when common observational data are used to constrain [...]
Changes in mesophotic carbonate-platform export across the end of the last glacial cycle (Saya de Malha Bank, western Indian Ocean)
Published: 2023-11-07
Subjects: Biogeochemistry, Geochemistry, Natural Resources and Conservation, Other Earth Sciences, Other Environmental Sciences, Paleobiology, Sedimentology, Stratigraphy
The export of neritic material from the top of carbonate platforms is a key process in the construction of their slopes. However, our knowledge of the supply pattern of materials from platforms is dominantly based on platforms lying in the euphotic zone during the present sea-level highstand. This is a somewhat biased perspective as through geological time not all platforms were euphotic. The [...]
High methane emissions from a eutrophic marine coastal basin driven by bubble release from the sediment
Published: 2023-10-25
Subjects: Biogeochemistry, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
The production of methane in coastal sediments and its release to the water column is intensified by anthropogenic eutrophication and bottom water hypoxia, and it is yet uncertain whether methane emissions to the atmosphere will be enhanced. Here, we assess seasonal variations in methane dynamics in a eutrophic, seasonally euxinic coastal marine basin (Scharendijke, Lake Grevelingen). In-situ [...]
Reply to: Beyond microbial carbon use efficiency
Published: 2023-10-20
Subjects: Biogeochemistry, Earth Sciences
In their commentary, Xiao et al. cautioned that the conclusions on the critical role of microbial carbon use efficiency (CUE) in global soil organic carbon (SOC) storage in a paper by Tao et al. (2023) might be too simplistic. They claimed that Tao et al.’s study lacked mechanistic consideration of SOC formation and excluded important datasets. Xiao et al. brought up important points, which can [...]
Combined genomic and imaging techniques show intense arsenic enrichment caused by detoxification in a microbial mat of the Dead Sea shore
Published: 2023-09-25
Subjects: Biogeochemistry, Environmental Microbiology and Microbial Ecology Life Sciences, Geochemistry, Paleobiology
Microbial mats and microbialites are essential tools for reconstructing early life and its environments. To better understand microbial trace element cycling, a microbial mat was collected from the sinkhole systems of the western shores of the Dead Sea, a dynamic environment exhibiting diverse extreme environments. Intense arsenic enrichment (up to 6.5 million times higher than current water [...]
No respite from permafrost-thaw impacts in absence of a global tipping point
Published: 2023-09-25
Subjects: Biogeochemistry, Climate, Earth Sciences, Geomorphology, Hydrology, Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Arctic permafrost, the largest non-seasonal component of Earth’s cryosphere, contains a significant climate-sensitive carbon pool. Its potential for loss due to climatic changes leading to a global tipping point, where thawing accelerates with disproportionate impacts, remains debated. Here, we provide an integrative perspective on this question, building on a cross-disciplinary meta-analysis of [...]
Reactive iron as an important reservoir of marine organic carbon over geological timescales
Published: 2023-09-20
Subjects: Biogeochemistry, Earth Sciences, Environmental Microbiology and Microbial Ecology Life Sciences, Microbiology
Reactive iron (FeR) has been suggested to serve as a semi-persistent sink of organic carbon (OC) in surface marine sediments, where approximately 10-20% of total OC (TOC) is associated with FeR (FeR-OC). However, the persistence of FeR-OC on geological timescales remains poorly constrained. Here, we retrieved FeR-OC records in two long sediment cores of the northern South China Sea spanning [...]
Recent methane surges reveal heightened emissions from tropical inundated areas
Published: 2023-09-05
Subjects: Atmospheric Sciences, Biogeochemistry, Earth Sciences
Beyond microbial carbon use efficiency
Published: 2023-08-16
Subjects: Biogeochemistry, Earth Sciences, Environmental Microbiology and Microbial Ecology Life Sciences, Life Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Soil Science
Microbial carbon use efficiency (CUE) is defined as the proportion of microbial biomass growth C versus substrate C uptake, and thus provides a useful measure of microbially driven accumulation and loss of soil organic carbon (SOC) 1. In a recent study published in Nature 2, the authors use a data-driven machine learning approach to conclude that CUE promotes global SOC storage based on a [...]
High rates of rock organic carbon oxidation sustained as Andean sediment transits the Amazon foreland-floodplain
Published: 2023-07-18
Subjects: Biogeochemistry, Geochemistry
The oxidation of organic carbon contained within sedimentary rocks (“petrogenic” carbon, or hereafter OCpetro) emits nearly as much CO2 as is released by volcanism, thereby playing a key role in the long-term global C budget. High erosion rates in mountains have been shown to increase OCpetro oxidation. However, these settings also export un-weathered material that may continue to react in [...]