ALBERT

Beschreibung: In light of ongoing climate change, it is increasingly important to know how nutritional requirements of ectotherms are affected by changing temperatures. Here, we analyse the wide thermal response of phosphorus (P) requirements via elemental gross growth efficiencies of Carbon (C) and P, and the Threshold Elemental Ratios in different aquatic invertebrate ectotherms: the freshwater model species Daphnia magna, the marine copepod Acartia tonsa, the marine heterotrophic dinoflagellate Oxyrrhis marina, and larvae of two populations of the marine crab Carcinus maenas. We show that they all share a non-linear cubic thermal response of nutrient requirements. Phosphorus requirements decrease from low to intermediate temperatures, increase at higher temperatures and decrease again when temperature is excessive. This common thermal response of nutrient requirements is of great importance if we aim to understand or even predict how ectotherm communities will react to global warming and nutrient-driven eutrophication.

Beschreibung: While environmental science, and ecology in particular, is working to provide better understanding to base sustainable decisions on, the way scientific understanding is developed can at times be detrimental to this cause. Locked-in debates are often unnecessarily polarised and can compromise any common goals of the opposing camps. The present paper is inspired by a resolved debate from an unrelated field of psychology where Nobel laureate David Kahneman and Garry Klein turned what seemed to be a locked-in debate into a constructive process for their fields. The present paper is also motivated by previous discourses regarding the role of thresholds in natural systems for management and governance, but its scope of analysis targets the scientific process within complex social-ecological systems in general. We identified four features of environmental science that appear to predispose for locked-in debates: (1) The strongly context-dependent behaviour of ecological systems. (2) The dominant role of single hypothesis testing. (3) The high prominence given to theory demonstration compared investigation. (4) The effect of urgent demands to inform and steer policy. This fertile ground is further cultivated by human psychological aspects as well as the structure of funding and publication systems.

Beschreibung: This study investigates the mesoscale dynamics involved in the 8–11 October 2008 unseasonably strong African dust episode, during which dust was transported to the Iberian Peninsula (IP). We employ observational datasets and a high-resolution Weather Research and Forecasting model coupled with Chemistry simulations. The analysis shows that during 0900–1200 UTC 9 October, a mesoscale convective system developed over the Atlas Mountains and resulted in a southwestward propagating convective cold pool outflow on the southern foothills of the Anti-Atlas, which lifted dust from the source region. Between 1200 and 1800 UTC 9 October, new moist convection was enhanced over the Atlas Mountains due to intensifying confluence among a heat low, moist southwesterly Atlantic sea-breeze front, and northeasterly flow associated with the convective cold pool near western Algeria. This new moist convection intensified the strength of the convective cold pool outflow and haboob, both of which continued propagating southwestward. At 1200 UTC 10 October, the low-pressure system migrated poleward on the southern slopes of the Anti-Atlas Mountains in association with a mountain-plains solenoidal circulation due to the daytime differential heating between the southern slopes of the Anti-Atlas and nearby atmosphere. The deepening low-pressure and strengthening Atlantic sea-breeze redirected an equatorward advancing dust plume into the poleward direction. The dust plume ultimately crossed the Saharan Atlas Mountains on 11 October and finally impacted the IP. Key Points: - WRF-Chem simulation of an unseasonably strong haboob on the southern slopes of the Atlas Mountains - The equatorward-advancing dust plume was recirculated in the poleward direction by an Atlantic sea-breeze front - The Atlantic sea-breeze front and an intensified upper-level cutoff vortex are instrumental for dust transport over the Iberian Peninsula

Beschreibung: Abrupt fluid emissions from shallow marine sediments pose a threat to seafloor installations like wind farms and offshore cables. Quantifying such fluid emissions and linking pockmarks, the seafloor manifestations of fluid escape, to flow in the sub-seafloor remains notoriously difficult due to an incomplete understanding of the underlying physical processes. Here, using a compositional multi-phase flow model, we test plausible gas sources for pockmarks in the south-eastern North Sea, which recent observations suggest have formed in response to major storms. We find that the mobilization of pre-existing gas pockets is unlikely because free gas, due to its high compressibility, damps the propagation of storm-induced pressure changes deeper into the subsurface. Rather, our results point to spontaneous appearance of a free gas phase via storm-induced gas exsolution from pore fluids. This mechanism is primarily driven by the pressure-sensitivity of gas solubility, and the appearance of free gas is largely confined to sediments in the vicinity of the seafloor. We show that in highly permeable sediments containing gas-rich pore fluids, wave-induced pressure changes result in the appearance of a persistent gas phase. This suggests that seafloor fluid escape structures are not always proxies for overpressured shallow gas and that periodic seafloor pressure changes can induce persistent free gas phase to spontaneously appear. Key Points - Storm-induced pressure changes can lead to spontaneous appearance of free gas phase near the seafloor - This process is driven by pressure-sensitive phase instabilities - This mechanism could help explain elusive gas sources in recently observed pockmarks in the North Sea

Beschreibung: The Arctic Ocean is considered a source of micronutrients to the Nordic Seas and the North Atlantic Ocean through the gateway of Fram Strait. However, there is a paucity of trace element data from across the Arctic Ocean gateways, and so it remains unclear how Arctic and North Atlantic exchange shapes micronutrient availability in the two ocean basins. In 2015 and 2016, GEOTRACES cruises sampled the Barents Sea Opening (GN04, 2015) and Fram Strait (GN05, 2016) for dissolved iron (dFe), manganese (dMn), cobalt (dCo), nickel (dNi), copper (dCu) and zinc (dZn). Together with the most recent synopsis of Arctic-Atlantic volume fluxes, the observed trace element distributions suggest that Fram Strait is the most important gateway for Arctic-Atlantic dissolved micronutrient exchange as a consequence of Intermediate and Deep Water transport. Combining fluxes from Fram Strait and the Barents Sea Opening with estimates for Davis Strait (GN02, 2015) suggests an annual net southward flux of 2.7 ± 2.4 Gg·a-1 dFe, 0.3 ± 0.3 Gg·a-1 dCo, 15.0 ± 12.5 Gg·a-1 dNi and 14.2 ± 6.9 Gg·a-1 dCu from the Arctic towards the North Atlantic Ocean. Arctic-Atlantic exchange of dMn and dZn were more balanced, with a net southbound flux of 2.8 ± 4.7 Gg·a-1 dMn and a net northbound flux of 3.0 ± 7.3 Gg·a-1 dZn. Our results suggest that ongoing changes to shelf inputs and sea ice dynamics in the Arctic, especially in Siberian shelf regions, affect micronutrient availability in Fram Strait and the high latitude North Atlantic Ocean.

Beschreibung: Recent studies, including many from the GEOTRACES program, have expanded our knowledge of trace metals in the Arctic Ocean, an isolated ocean dominated by continental shelf and riverine inputs. Here, we report a unique, pan-Arctic linear relationship between dissolved copper (Cu) and nickel (Ni) present north of 60°N that is absent in other oceans. The correlation is driven primarily by high Cu and Ni concentrations in the low salinity, river-influenced surface Arctic and low, homogeneous concentrations in Arctic deep waters, opposing their typical global distributions. Rivers are a major source of both metals, which is most evident within the central Arctic's Transpolar Drift. Local decoupling of the linear Cu-Ni relationship along the Chukchi Shelf and within the Canada Basin upper halocline reveals that Ni is additionally modified by biological cycling and shelf sediment processes, while Cu is mostly sourced from riverine inputs and influenced by mixing. This observation highlights differences in their chemistries: Cu is more prone to complexation with organic ligands, stabilizing its riverine source fluxes into the Arctic, while Ni is more labile and is dominated by biological processes. Within the Canadian Arctic Archipelago, an important source of Arctic water to the Atlantic Ocean, contributions of Cu and Ni from meteoric waters and the halocline are attenuated during transit to the Atlantic. Additionally, Cu and Ni in deep waters diminish with age due to isolation from surface sources, with higher concentrations in the younger Eastern Arctic basins and lower concentrations in the older Western Arctic basins.

Beschreibung: With increasing pressure for climate action, commitments to setting scientifically supported emissions targets have become more common among firms. The target-setting methods currently endorsed by the Science Based Targets Initiative (SBTi) use emission pathways that are aligned with 1.5°C and well-below 2°C long-term temperature goals to inform near-term corporate targets. However, most of these scenarios lead to a temperature overshoot, followed by a return to the temperature goal achieved via net-negative emissions in the second half of this century. When used to inform near-term (e.g., 2030) corporate targets, the result is a set of targets that are aligned with an overshoot of a temperature target, with no explicit long-term commitment to using negative emissions technologies to reverse this. To decrease the risk of this misalignment with the long-term temperature goal, we propose an alternative approach that derives corporate targets directly from the remaining global cumulative carbon budget. We illustrate this approach using global Scope 1 emissions disclosed by public firms in 2019 to estimate corporate carbon budgets and construct idealized emissions-reduction pathways that are consistent with the remaining global carbon budget for 1.5°C and well-below 2°C. While firms, or their sectors, may choose varying mitigation pathways aligned with either global temperature limit, consistency with remaining carbon budgets requires that any delayed mitigation action in the near term is followed by more rapid emissions reductions in subsequent years. This study emphasizes the need for a more precautionary and robust approach to corporate target setting.

Beschreibung: In nature, insects concurrently face multiple environmental stressors, a scenario likely increasing with climate change. Integrated stress resistance (ISR) thus often improves fitness and could drive invasiveness, but how physiological mechanisms influence invasion has lacked examination. Here, we investigated cross tolerance to abiotic stress factors which may influence range limits in the South American tomato pinworm – a global invader that is an ecologically and socially damaging crop pest. Specifically, we tested the effects of prior rapid cold- and heat-hardening (RCH and RHH), fasting and desiccation on cold and heat tolerance traits, as well as starvation and desiccation survivability between T. absoluta life stages. Acclimation effects on critical thermal minima (CTmin) and maxima (CTmax) were inconsistent, showing significantly deleterious effects of RCH on adult CTmax and CTmin and, conversely, beneficial acclimation effects of RCH on larval CTmin. While no beneficial effects of desiccation acclimation were recorded for desiccation tolerance, fasted individuals had significantly higher survival in adults, whereas fasting negatively affected larval tolerances. Furthermore, fasted and desiccation acclimated adults had significantly higher starvation tolerance, showing strong evidence for cross-tolerance. Our results show context-dependent ISR traits that may promote T. absoluta fitness and competitiveness. Given the frequent overlapping occurrence of these divergent stressors, ISR reported here may thus partly elucidate the observed rapid global spread of T. absoluta into more stressful environments than expected. This information is vital in determining the underpinnings of multi-stressor responses, which are fundamental in forecasting species responses to changing environments and management responses.

Beschreibung: Shallow seabed depressions attributed to focused fluid seepage, known as pockmarks, have been documented in all continental margins. In this study we demonstrate how pockmark formation can be the result of a combination of multiple factors – fluid type, overpressures, seafloor sediment type, stratigraphy, and bottom currents. We integrate multibeam echosounder and seismic reflection data, sediment cores and pore water samples, with numerical models of groundwater and gas hydrates, from the Canterbury Margin (off New Zealand). More than 6800 surface pockmarks, reaching densities of 100 per km2, and an undefined number of buried pockmarks, are identified in the middle to outer shelf and lower continental slope. Fluid conduits across the shelf and slope include shallow to deep chimneys/pipes. Methane with a biogenic and/or thermogenic origin is the main fluid forming flow and escape features, although saline and freshened groundwaters may also be seeping across the slope. The main drivers of fluid flow and seepage are overpressure across the slope generated by sediment loading and thin sediment overburden above the overpressured interval in the outer shelf. Other processes (e.g. methane generation and flow, a reduction in hydrostatic pressure due to sea-level lowering) may also account for fluid flow and seepage features, particularly across the shelf. Pockmark occurrence coincides with muddy sediments at the seafloor, whereas their planform is elongated by bottom currents.

Beschreibung: Marine coastal zones are highly productive, and dominated by engineer species (e.g. macrophytes, molluscs, corals) that modify the chemistry of their surrounding seawater via their metabolism, causing substantial fluctuations in oxygen, dissolved inorganic carbon, pH, and nutrients. The magnitude of these biologically driven chemical fluctuations is regulated by hydrodynamics, can exceed values predicted for the future open ocean, and creates chemical patchiness in subtidal areas at various spatial (µm to meters) and temporal (minutes to months) scales. Although the role of hydrodynamics is well explored for planktonic communities, its influence as a crucial driver of benthic organism and community functioning is poorly addressed, particularly in the context of ocean global change. Hydrodynamics can directly modulate organismal physiological activity or indirectly influence an organism's performance by modifying its habitat. This review addresses recent developments in (i) the influence of hydrodynamics on the biological activity of engineer species, (ii) the description of chemical habitats resulting from the interaction between hydrodynamics and biological activity, (iii) the role of these chemical habitat as refugia against ocean acidification and deoxygenation, and (iv) how species living in such chemical habitats may respond to ocean global change. Recommendations are provided to integrate the effect of hydrodynamics and environmental fluctuations in future research, to better predict the responses of coastal benthic ecosystems to ongoing ocean global change.