In this study, we show that the deep-sea meiofauna community at the Brazilian Equatorial Margin (BEM) is strongly influenced by the Amazon River. Our comparison across four deep ocean basins including Amazon, Pará-Maranhão, Barreirinhas, and Ceará showed that the former supports a completely distinct meiofaunal community. Meiofaunal richness increased with increasing distance from the Amazon, reflecting

An accurate representation of physical and biological processes is crucial to resolve larval dispersal pathways and characterize connectivity of coral reef ecosystems. We investigate how hydrodynamic forcings drive larval retention rates during the bi-annual mass coral spawning of the coral genus Acropora within a coral reef atoll (Mermaid Reef), located off northwestern Australia. By analyzing hydrodynamic

Interactions between phytoplankton species shape their physiological and evolutionary responses. Yet, studies addressing the evolutionary responses of phytoplankton in changing environments often lack an explicit element of biotic interactions. Here, we ask (1) how the presence of a locally adapted phytoplankton species will affect an invading phytoplankton species' evolutionary response to a physiologically

Dissolved oxygen (DO) is a critically important ecological variable, and the prevalence of marine hypoxia is expected to increase due to the combined effects of ocean warming and eutrophication. Thermal stress can co-occur with hypoxia, especially in tropical systems, and can exacerbate its effects. We examine the physical processes that are important in regulating hypoxia and temperature inversions

Methane (CH4) produced in anoxic sediments plays a significant role in the carbon economy of many lakes and reservoirs. CH4 released from sediments first crosses the bottom boundary layer (BBL), the layer of water overlying the lakebed where currents are slowed by friction with the sediments below. Physical and biogeochemical conditions in the BBL, which can fluctuate hourly to daily with basin-wide

Mountain lakes experience interannual variability in spring snowpack and ice cover that can lead to differences in physical, chemical, and biological properties in the succeeding summer. Lake studies that capture extreme years of snow and ice would be useful to understand and anticipate effects of climate change, but such data are rare for remote mountain lakes. Monitoring of lakes in Olympic, North

Methane oxidation in lakes removes a large portion of methane (CH4). To date, methane oxidation estimates in lakes have often been derived at low spatial resolution in the water column, preventing understanding of the links to the physicochemical gradients in the stratified regions. We applied a mass balance approach with measured dissolved CH4 and sediment CH4 fluxes to derive high-resolution depth

The collection of zooplankton swimmers and sinkers in time-series sediment traps provides unique insight into year-round and interannual trends in zooplankton population dynamics. These samples are particularly valuable in remote and difficult to access areas such as the Arctic Ocean, where samples from the ice-covered season are rare. In the present study, we investigated zooplankton composition based

Many lake ecosystems that have been severely disturbed by eutrophication, have also experienced large human efforts to restore “natural” conditions. However, the trajectories and the extent of recovery of these lake ecosystems are still poorly understood. In many shallow lakes, recovery was often delayed and counter-clockwise hysteretic. Here, we study recovery and ecosystem trajectories in a large

Estuaries at the global scale are significant but highly uncertain sources of atmospheric nitrous oxide (N2O), which is an intense greenhouse gas and ozone depletion agent. As the largest estuary in the United States, the Chesapeake Bay is suggested to be a spatially and temporally variable source and sink of N2O. However, limited observations of N2O cycling preclude us from estimating and predicting

In eastern boundary current systems, strong coastal upwelling brings deep, nutrient-rich waters to the surface ocean, supporting a productive food web. The nitrate load in water masses that supply the region can be impacted by a variety of climate-related processes that subsequently modulate primary productivity. In this study, two coastal upwelling regimes along central and southern California were

Western Lake Erie cyanobacterial harmful algal blooms (cyanoHABs) occur every summer as a result of anthropogenic nutrient loading. Although the physiological importance of nitrogen (N) in supporting bloom biomass and toxin production is established, the role of internal N recycling in the water column to support bloom maintenance is not as well understood. Over three field seasons (2015–2017), we

Several species of fish in large lakes and marine environments have a pelagic larval stage, and are subject to variable transport that can ultimately regulate survival and recruitment success. Alewife, Alosa pseudoharengus, are subject to transport by complex coastal currents during their pelagic larval stage (~ 30 d). We assessed backward-trajectory simulations, consisting of a Lagrangian particle

Zooplankton consumption of aggregates, such as marine snow, is an important factor in determining the efficiency of the biological carbon pump. However, the feeding rates of aggregate-associated small harpacticoid and poecilostomatoid copepods are largely unknown, as are the factors that influence these rates. We measured the functional responses of pellet production (PP) of aggregate-feeding copepods

Intermittent streams are characterized by significant periods of low to no flow, yet are also frequently subjected to flashy, high floods. Floods alter ecosystem function and result in variable successional patterns across the stream network. Yet, the timing of restored function after floods in intermittent stream networks is relatively unexplored. We measured recovery of stream ecosystem function

Identifying primary environmental drivers mediating the quantity and quality of sedimentary organic matter (OM) in climate-sensitive alpine lakes is crucial to understanding the role of alpine lakes in greenhouse gas emissions and Earth's climate system. Here, we characterized various pools of OM of 20 alpine lakes across the Tibetan Plateau, including bulk OM, water-soluble OM and alkaline-extracted

The cyanobacterial blooms caused by eutrophication exert strong selection on zooplankton grazers. Resurrection ecology, coupled with multivariate reaction norm analysis, can be used to parse the relative contributions of plasticity and evolution to mediating adaptation to environmental changes in natural populations. Here, we tested whether increasing levels of toxic cyanobacteria result in multivariate

Animals often shape environmental microbial communities, which can in turn influence animal gut microbiomes. Invasive species in critical habitats may reduce grazing pressure from native species and shift microbial communities. The landlocked coastal ponds, pools, and caves that make up the Hawaiian anchialine ecosystem support an endemic shrimp (Halocaridina rubra) that grazes on diverse benthic microbial

Degradation and loss of coral reefs due to climate change and other anthropogenic stressors has fueled genomics, proteomics, and genetics research to investigate coral stress response pathways and to identify resilient species, genotypes, and populations to restore these biodiverse ecosystems. Much of the research and conservation effort has understandably focused on the most taxonomically rich regions

Lakes are undergoing striking physicochemical changes globally, including co-occurring increases in dissolved organic carbon and nutrient concentrations, water color, and surface temperature. Although several experimental studies of lake browning and warming have been conducted over the last decade, knowledge remains limited as to the structural and functional responses of multitrophic plankton communities

Longitudinal environmental heterogeneity and directionality of the water movement are key features that may exert contrasting forces on riverine plankton assembly. Directionality strengthens dispersal-driven assembly, but this can be masked by urbanization-induced environmental heterogeneity along the river continuum. In the light of this contrast, we aimed at delineating the relative importance of

Anthropogenic CO2-emission is causing ocean warming and acidification. Understanding how basic physiological processes of marine organisms respond to these stressors is important for predicting their responses to future global change. We examined the effects of elevated pCO2 and temperature (pCO2 = 344–2199 ppm; temperature = 6°C, 9°C, and 12°C) on the calcification rate, extrapallial fluid (EPF) carbonate

Sea ice retreat, changing stratification, and ocean acidification are fundamentally changing the light availability and physico-chemical conditions for primary producers in the Arctic Ocean. However, detailed studies on ecophysiological strategies and performance of key species in the pelagic and ice-associated habitat remain scarce. Therefore, we investigated the acclimated responses of the diatoms

Seagrass meadows are important carbon sinks in the global coastal carbon cycle yet are also among the most rapidly declining marine habitats. Their ability to sequester carbon depends on flow–sediment–vegetation interactions that facilitate net deposition, as well as high rates of primary production. However, the effects of seasonal and episodic variations in seagrass density on net sediment and carbon

Woodstock, M.S., T.T. Sutton, and Y. Zhang. 2022. A trait-based carbon export model for mesopelagic fishes in the Gulf of Mexico with consideration of asynchronous vertical migration, flux boundaries, and feeding guilds. Limnol. Oceanogr. doi.org/10.1002/lno.12093. In our original publication, we inadvertently omitted a key reference to a statement made in our discussion. In the final paragraph, the

Plankton imaging systems supported by automated classification and analysis have improved ecologists' ability to observe aquatic ecosystems. Today, we are on the cusp of reliably tracking plankton populations with a suite of lab-based and in situ tools, collecting imaging data at unprecedentedly fine spatial and temporal scales. But these data have potential well beyond examining the abundances of

The influence of global change on Southern Ocean productivity will have major ramifications for future management of polar life. A prior laboratory study investigated the response of a batch-cultured subantarctic diatom to projected change simulating conditions for 2100 (increased temperature/CO2/irradiance/iron; decreased macronutrients), showed a twofold higher chlorophyll-derived growth rate driven

The 2014–2017 global coral bleaching event caused widespread coral mortality; however, its impact on the capacity for coral reefs to maintain calcium carbonate structures has not been determined. Here, we quantified remotely sensed maximum heat stress during the 2014–2017 bleaching event, census-based net carbonate budgets from benthic imagery and fish survey data, and net reef calcification from salinity

Greenhouse gas fluxes (CO2, CH4, and N2O) from African streams and rivers are under-represented in global datasets, resulting in uncertainties in their contributions to regional and global budgets. We conducted year-long sampling of 59 sites in a nested-catchment design in the Mara River, Kenya in which fluxes were quantified and their underlying controls assessed. We estimated annual basin-scale greenhouse

The isotopic composition of dissolved O2 (δ18O) in aquatic environments is strongly affected by the preferential uptake of the lighter isotopologue during biological consumption processes. Numerous studies have shown that during incubation experiments, the isotopic effect of microorganism respiration (εorganism) is on the order of −20‰. However, studies of the co-variations of O2 and δ18O in natural

Phytoplankton play a major role on Earth, impacting the global distribution and cycles of carbon, oxygen, nitrogen, sulfur, and other elements, and structuring marine food webs. One fundamental trait of phytoplankton with direct biogeochemical implications is their size, as it governs metabolic and sinking rates as well as prey–predator interactions. Phytoplankton size spans approximately 3.5 orders

Eutrophication and stratification events have increased the incidences of hypoxia and anoxia in coastal environments. The depletion of oxygen in these environments can lead to a shift in biogeochemical processes such as denitrification and dissimilatory nitrate reduction to ammonium (DNRA). The balance between denitrification and DNRA is critical because denitrification leads to a loss of bioavailable

The paper published in Limnology and Oceanography 67: 784-799 (2022) contains a calculation error. This error concerns the result and discussion sections “Stoichiometric variation in the benthic community”. The benthic community biomass and consequently the community C, N and P content were miscalculated. The corrected benthic community C, N and P content is approximately three times higher than the

A physical model of a Burgers vortex was created in the laboratory with characteristics corresponding to dissipative-scale eddies that copepods are likely to encounter in turbulent flows. The swimming behavior of three marine copepod species is assessed as a function of vortex strength in and around the flow structure with the vortex axis aligned vertically or horizontally in the water. The studied

Increasing heat content, salinity, and velocity of the Atlantic water masses passing northward through the Fram Strait accelerate the transition of the European Arctic toward more Atlantic state, a process referred to as Atlantification. A pronounced environmental shift leads to a poleward expansion of boreal species ranges and alters seasonal rhythms of local taxa, potentially affecting the whole

Functional traits are increasingly used to assess changes in phytoplankton community structure and to link individual characteristics to ecosystem functioning. However, they are usually inferred from taxonomic identification or manually measured for each organism, both time consuming approaches. Instead, we focus on high throughput imaging to describe the main temporal variations of morphological changes

Predicting the potential distribution of species and possible dispersal corridors at a global scale can contribute to better understanding the availability of suitable habitat to move between, and the potential connectivity between regional distributions. Such information increases knowledge of ecological and biogeographic processes, but also has management applications at a global scale, for example

Isotopic enrichment factors are key to using stable isotope signatures in biogeochemical studies. However, these are typically determined in laboratory experiments and their applicability to environmental conditions is difficult to test. Here, we analyzed nitrogen stable isotope changes associated with nitrification in a coastal basin using weekly time-series measurements of δ15N in particulate nitrogen

Saltmarshes are a blue carbon ecosystem accumulating large quantities of organic carbon in sediments. Some of this carbon can be transformed into dissolved inorganic carbon (DIC) and methane (CH4) that may eventually be exported to the ocean or atmosphere. Although extensive studies have quantified specific components of the carbon budget such as carbon burial, limited attention has been given to pore-water-derived

Lakes can be important sources of the potent greenhouse gas nitrous oxide (N2O) to the atmosphere, but to what extent abiotic processes may contribute to lacustrine N2O production remains uncertain. We assessed pathways of N2O production and reduction in the water column of meromictic and iron-rich Lake La Cruz, Spain, including chemodenitrification-induced N2O formation via the reaction of reactive

Lakes are currently facing multiple anthropogenic stressors impacting their ecological communities. The best way to understand how these systems will be affected by the changing environment is by modeling community dynamics. Models of lake food webs have tended to focus on pelagic organisms and treat lakes as if they contain single, uniform communities. However, heterogeneity in environmental conditions

Larvae of marine calcifying organisms are particularly vulnerable to the adverse effects of elevated pCO2 on shell formation because of their rapid calcification rates, reduced capacity to isolate calcifying fluid from seawater, and use of more soluble polymorphs of calcium carbonate. However, parental exposure to elevated pCO2 could benefit larval shell formation through transgenerational plastic

A unique combination of data collected from fixed instruments, spatial surveys, and a long-term observing network in the Hudson River demonstrate the importance of spatial and temporal variations in atmospheric gas flux. The atmospheric exchanges of oxygen (O2) and carbon dioxide (CO2) exhibit variability at a range of time scales including pronounced modulation driven by spring-neap variations in

We studied how physiologically important long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA) in benthic macroinvertebrates (Asellus aquaticus, Chironomidae, and Oligochaeta) were related to those in periphyton and terrestrial organic matter (tree leaves), collected from littoral areas of 17 boreal lakes that differed in their dissolved organic carbon (DOC) and nutrient (phosphorus and nitrogen) concentrations

Kelp forests worldwide are under increasing pressure from anthropogenic impacts including kelp harvesting, pollution, and higher sea surface temperatures due to climate change. Accurate mapping of these habitat types is required to inform effective conservation policies. We show that adding the acoustic energy from the multibeam echosounder water-column data immediately above the seafloor as a variable

In this study, we used a combination of high-intensity sampling technologies, and a 3D hydrodynamic model of a medium-sized lake in southern Ontario, Canada to investigate physical–biological relationships at spatial scales from 100 m to 6 km and temporal scales from hours to months. At the scale of the whole study basin, we predicted that stronger winds would lead to higher zooplankton biomass downwind

The differential survival of corals and their recovery from oceanic thermal stress is related not only to coral bleaching susceptibility but also physiological plasticity including trophic strategy. We investigated post-bleaching event recovery of three morphologically diverse, reef-building coral species from shallow (10 m) and mesophotic (30 m) reefs across the Maldives archipelago. Trophic plasticity

The accelerated rate of climate change in the Arctic Ocean occurs in conjunction with a system known for its extreme seasonal variability. Here, we present 2 years of continuous pH, salinity, and temperature data from the north Arctic coast of Alaska from instruments deployed in a kelp bed at 4.5–6 m depths in Stefansson Sound. At the innermost site, which receives freshwater runoff from the nearby

Lake water levels are integral to lake function, but hydrologic changes from land and water management may alter lake fluctuations beyond natural ranges. We constructed a conceptual model of multifaceted drivers of lake water levels and evaporation-to-inflow ratio (Evap : Inflow). Using a structural equation modeling framework, we tested our model on (1) a national subset of lakes in the conterminous

Ocean warming endangers coastal ecosystems through increased risk of infectious disease, yet detection, surveillance, and forecasting of marine diseases remain limited. Eelgrass (Zostera marina) meadows provide essential coastal habitat and are vulnerable to a temperature-sensitive wasting disease caused by the protist Labyrinthula zosterae. We assessed wasting disease sensitivity to warming temperatures

Laboratory experiments using an artificial seagrass meadow modeled after Zostera marina measured the impact of following currents on meadow-induced wave decay as a function of the imposed current velocity Uc , wave velocity Uw , and wave Cauchy number Caw , which is the ratio of hydrodynamic drag force to restoring force due to blade stiffness. For small wave-induced reconfiguration of individual seagrass

We investigated the effects of Ni concentration on hydrogen (H2) net production and nitrogen (N2) fixation rates in a model unicellular diazotrophic cyanobacterium, Cyanothece. We quantified NiFe uptake hydrogenase of the diazotroph to examine how Ni deficiency affects the expression of hydrogenase and nitrogenase and N2 fixation rates. We found that Ni availability controls its H2 net production and

Contrasting concentrations of macronutrients and micronutrients induce different nutrient limitations of the oceanic productivity and shape the composition of the phytoplankton communities of the South Indian Ocean and Indian sector of the Southern Ocean. o assess the phytoplankton response to nutrient release by desert dust and volcanic ash aerosols in these distinct biogeochemical regions, we conducted

Water chemistry and its ecological implications have been extensively investigated in temperate high-mountain lakes because of their role as sentinels of global change. However, few studies have considered the drivers of water chemistry in tropical mountain lakes underlain by volcanic bedrock. A survey of 165 páramo lakes in the Cajas Massif of the Southern Ecuador Andes identified 4 independent chemical

The phenology of dissolved oxygen (DO) dynamics and metabolism in north temperate lakes offers a basis for comparing metabolic cycles over multi-year time scales. Although proximal control over lake DO can be attributed to metabolism and physical processes, how those processes evolve over decades largely remains unexplored. Metabolism phenology may reveal the importance of coherence among lakes and

Methane (CH4) from aquatic ecosystems contributes to about half of total global CH4 emissions to the atmosphere. Until recently, aquatic biogenic CH4 production was exclusively attributed to methanogenic archaea living under anoxic or suboxic conditions in sediments, bottom waters, and wetlands. However, evidence for oxic CH4 production (OMP) in freshwater, brackish, and marine habitats is increasing

Coral bleaching caused by ocean warming is leading to worldwide coral decline. The physiological processes underlying this ecological event are still incompletely understood, although previous research has suggested oxidative stress as major player in the impairment of symbiont thylakoid membranes and in symbiosis breakdown. Lipids are interesting targets of investigation, given their susceptibility

Ocean circulation is the engine of dispersal and population connectivity in marine ecosystems, knowledge of which is essential for conservation planning. Understanding connectivity patterns at a large scale can help define the spatial extent of metapopulations. In this study, we built connectivity networks from Lagrangian transport simulations of neutrally buoyant particles released along the Indian

Fish-mediated carbon export provides a significant proportion of the biological carbon pump in oligotrophic regions. Bioenergetic models estimate this carbon transport, but many lack species-specific traits and no carbon export model has been developed in the mesopelagic Gulf of Mexico. Intensive mesopelagic sampling efforts in the northern and eastern Gulf of Mexico have provided high-resolution information

Cyanobacterial biomass forecasts currently cannot predict the concentrations of microcystin, one of the most ubiquitous cyanotoxins that threaten human and wildlife health globally. Mechanistic insights into how microcystin production and biodegradation by heterotrophic bacteria change spatially and throughout the bloom season can aid in toxin concentration forecasts. We quantified microcystin production