ALBERT

Description: © The Author(s), 2020. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in Bowen, J. L., Giblin, A. E., Murphy, A. E., Bulseco, A. N., Deegan, L. A., Johnson, D. S., Nelson, J. A., Mozdzer, T. J., & Sullivan, H. L. Not all nitrogen is created equal: differential effects of nitrate and ammonium enrichment in coastal wetlands. Bioscience, 70(12), (2020): 1108-1119, doi:10.1093/biosci/biaa140.

Description: Excess reactive nitrogen (N) flows from agricultural, suburban, and urban systems to coasts, where it causes eutrophication. Coastal wetlands take up some of this N, thereby ameliorating the impacts on nearshore waters. Although the consequences of N on coastal wetlands have been extensively studied, the effect of the specific form of N is not often considered. Both oxidized N forms (nitrate, NO3−) and reduced forms (ammonium, NH4+) can relieve nutrient limitation and increase primary production. However, unlike NH4+, NO3− can also be used as an electron acceptor for microbial respiration. We present results demonstrating that, in salt marshes, microbes use NO3− to support organic matter decomposition and primary production is less stimulated than when enriched with reduced N. Understanding how different forms of N mediate the balance between primary production and decomposition is essential for managing coastal wetlands as N enrichment and sea level rise continue to assail our coasts.

Description: This work was supported by the following funding sources: National Science Foundation (NSF) grant no. DEB 1902712 to LAD, JLB, DSJ, and TJM; NSF grant no. DEB 1902695 to AEG; NSF grant no. DEB 1902704 to JAN; NSF grant no. DEB 1354214 to TJM; NSF grant no. DEB 1350491 to JLB; NSF grant no. OCE 1637630 to AEG and LAD; and additional funding from the Dorr Foundation, the Department of the Interior Northeast Climate Science Center (grant no. DOI G12AC00001), and a Bullard Fellowship (Harvard University) to LAD and from the National Academies of Science, Medicine, and Engineering Gulf Research Program to JAN. Resources purchased with funds from the NSF Biological Field Stations and Marine Laboratories program (grant no. DBI 1722553, to Northeastern University) were used to generate the data for the manuscript. Initial conversations on the effects of nutrient enrichment in marshes with Scott Warren and Bruce Peterson were critical in informing the work described in the manuscript. Sam Kelsey and Jane Tucker contributed to much of the N cycling biogeochemistry; Caitlin Bauer, Frankie Leach, Paige Weber, Emily Geoghegan and Sophie Drew assisted with field work; and Joe Vineis assisted with metagenomic analysis. This is contribution 3941 from the Virginia Institute of Marine Science. The data were compiled from multiple published sources. Links to published data can be found here: https://pie-lter.ecosystems.mbl.edu/data. The sequence data used to derive figure 6 are publicly available on the MG-RAST website under project number mgp84173.

Description: © The Author(s), 2020. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in Doo, S. S., Kealoha, A., Andersson, A., Cohen, A. L., Hicks, T. L., Johnson, Z., I., Long, M. H., McElhany, P., Mollica, N., Shamberger, K. E. F., Silbiger, N. J., Takeshita, Y., & Busch, D. S. The challenges of detecting and attributing ocean acidification impacts on marine ecosystems. ICES Journal of Marine Science, 77(7-8), (2020): 2411-2422, https://doi.org/10.1093/icesjms/fsaa094.

Description: A substantial body of research now exists demonstrating sensitivities of marine organisms to ocean acidification (OA) in laboratory settings. However, corresponding in situ observations of marine species or ecosystem changes that can be unequivocally attributed to anthropogenic OA are limited. Challenges remain in detecting and attributing OA effects in nature, in part because multiple environmental changes are co-occurring with OA, all of which have the potential to influence marine ecosystem responses. Furthermore, the change in ocean pH since the industrial revolution is small relative to the natural variability within many systems, making it difficult to detect, and in some cases, has yet to cross physiological thresholds. The small number of studies that clearly document OA impacts in nature cannot be interpreted as a lack of larger-scale attributable impacts at the present time or in the future but highlights the need for innovative research approaches and analyses. We summarize the general findings in four relatively well-studied marine groups (seagrasses, pteropods, oysters, and coral reefs) and integrate overarching themes to highlight the challenges involved in detecting and attributing the effects of OA in natural environments. We then discuss four potential strategies to better evaluate and attribute OA impacts on species and ecosystems. First, we highlight the need for work quantifying the anthropogenic input of CO2 in coastal and open-ocean waters to understand how this increase in CO2 interacts with other physical and chemical factors to drive organismal conditions. Second, understanding OA-induced changes in population-level demography, potentially increased sensitivities in certain life stages, and how these effects scale to ecosystem-level processes (e.g. community metabolism) will improve our ability to attribute impacts to OA among co-varying parameters. Third, there is a great need to understand the potential modulation of OA impacts through the interplay of ecology and evolution (eco–evo dynamics). Lastly, further research efforts designed to detect, quantify, and project the effects of OA on marine organisms and ecosystems utilizing a comparative approach with long-term data sets will also provide critical information for informing the management of marine ecosystems.

Description: SSD was funded by NSF OCE (grant # 1415268). DSB and PM were supported by the NOAA Ocean Acidification Program and Northwest Fisheries Science Center, MHL was supported by NSF OCE (grant # 1633951), ZIJ was supported by NSF OCE (grant # 1416665) and DOE EERE (grant #DE-EE008518), NJS was supported by NSF OCE (grant # 1924281), ALC was supported by NSF OCE (grant # 1737311), and AA was supported by NSF OCE (grant # 1416518). KEFS, AK, and TLH were supported by Texas A&M University. This is CSUN Marine Biology contribution (# 306).