ALBERT

Beschreibung: A recent optimality-based model for phytoplankton growth and diazotrophy was applied at two stations located in the oligotrophic western and the ultra-oligotrophic eastern subtropical North Atlantic. Contrary to the common view that diazotrophy is favoured by nitrogen (N) depletion relative to the Redfield equivalent of phosphorus (P), we find that optimality-based diazotrophy could explain N fixation in both regions in spite of relatively high N:P supply ratios. This is possible because the availability of an additional source of N for diazotrophs makes them strong competitors for P under oligotrophic conditions. The best reproduction of observations, especially of net primary production, is only achieved with preferential remineralization of P relative to N and atmospheric deposition. In line with observations, a higher rate of nitrogen fixation is predicted for the eastern site, owing to a larger niche for diazotrophs resulting from stronger oligotrophy and lower N:P supply ratios due to weaker atmospheric N deposition. Because the competitive advantage of diazotrophs under nutrient starvation diminishes with increasing supply N:P ratio, the predicted increase of atmospheric N deposition due to anthropogenic activity could negatively affect N2 fixation in the Atlantic Ocean.

Beschreibung: In the Baltic Sea, two genetically distinct cod populations occur, the eastern and the western Baltic cod. Since 2006, cod abundance has increased substantially in the Arkona Basin (SD 24), the potential mixing area between the two stocks management areas, presumably due to spill-over from the eastern stock. In this study, the spatio-temporal dynamics of stock mixing were analysed using shape analysis of archived otoliths. Further, the impact of eastern cod immigration on recruitment in the western Baltic Sea was investigated using hydrographic drift modelling. The percentage of eastern Baltic cod in the Arkona Basin increased from ca. 30% before 2005 to 〉80% in recent years. Geographic patterns in stock mixing with a pronounced east–west trend suggest that immigration occurs north of Bornholm, but propagates throughout the Arkona Basin. The immigration cannot be attributed to spawning migration, as no seasonal trend in stock mixing was observed. Based on environmental threshold levels for egg survival and time-series of hydrography data, the habitat suitable for successful spawning of eastern cod was estimated to range between 20 and 50% of the maximum possible habitat size, limited by primarily low salinity. Best conditions occurred irregularly in May–end June, interspersed with years where successful spawning was virtually impossible. Using a coupled hydrodynamic modelling and particle-tracking approach, the drift and survival of drifters representing eastern cod eggs was estimated. On average, 19% of the drifters in the Arkona Basin survive to the end of the yolk-sac stage, with mortality primarily after bottom contact due to low salinity. The general drift direction of the surviving larvae was towards the east. Therefore, it is the immigration of eastern cod, rather than larval transport, that contributes to cod recruitment in the western Baltic Sea.

Beschreibung: The quest for the ideal therapeutic target in chronic kidney disease (CKD) has been riddled with many obstacles stemming from the molecular complexity of the disease and its co-morbidities. Recent advances in omics technologies and the resulting amount of available data encompassing genomics, proteomics, peptidomics, transcriptomics and metabolomics has created an opportunity for integrating omics datasets to build a comprehensive and dynamic model of the molecular changes in CKD for the purpose of biomarker and drug discovery. This article reviews relevant concepts in omics data integration using systems biology, a mathematical modelling method that globally describes a biological system on the basis of its modules and the functional connections that govern their behaviour. The review describes key databases and bioinformatics tools, as well as the challenges and limitations of the current state of the art, along with practical application to CKD therapeutic target discovery. Moreover, it describes how systems biology and visualization tools can be used to generate clinically relevant molecular models with the capability to identify specific disease pathways, recognize key events in disease development and track disease progression.

Beschreibung: It is currently under debate whether organisms that regulate their acid–base status under environmental hypercapnia demand additional energy. This could impair animal fitness, but might be compensated for via increased ingestion rates when food is available. No data are yet available for dominant Calanus spp. from boreal and Arctic waters. To fill this gap, we incubated Calanus glacialis at 390, 1120, and 3000 µatm for 16 d with Thalassiosira weissflogii (diatom) as food source on-board RV Polarstern in Fram Strait in 2012. Every 4 d copepods were subsampled from all CO2 treatments and clearance and ingestion rates were determined. During the SOPRAN mesocosm experiment in Bergen, Norway, 2011, we weekly collected Calanus finmarchicus from mesocosms initially adjusted to 390 and 3000 µatm CO2 and measured grazing at low and high pCO2. In addition, copepods were deep frozen for body mass analyses. Elevated pCO2 did not directly affect grazing activities and body mass, suggesting that the copepods did not have additional energy demands for coping with acidification, neither during long-term exposure nor after immediate changes in pCO2. Shifts in seawater pH thus do not seem to challenge these copepod species.

Beschreibung: The TAMMAR segment of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge forms a classic propagating system centred about two degrees south of the Kane Fracture Zone. The segment is propagating to the south at a rate of 14 mm yr−1, 15 per cent faster than the half-spreading rate. Here, we use seismic refraction data across the propagating rift, sheared zone and failed rift to investigate the crustal structure of the system. Inversion of the seismic data agrees remarkably well with crustal thicknesses determined from gravity modelling. We show that the crust is thickened beneath the highly magmatic propagating rift, reaching a maximum thickness of almost 8 km along the seismic line and an inferred (from gravity) thickness of about 9 km at its centre. In contrast, the crust in the sheared zone is mostly 4.5–6.5 km thick, averaging over 1 km thinner than normal oceanic crust, and reaching a minimum thickness of only 3.5 km in its NW corner. Along the seismic line, it reaches a minimum thickness of under 5 km. The PmP reflection beneath the sheared zone and failed rift is very weak or absent, suggesting serpentinisation beneath the Moho, and thus effective transport of water through the sheared zone crust. We ascribe this increased porosity in the sheared zone to extensive fracturing and faulting during deformation. We show that a bookshelf-faulting kinematic model predicts significantly more crustal thinning than is observed, suggesting that an additional mechanism of deformation is required. We therefore propose that deformation is partitioned between bookshelf faulting and simple shear, with no more than 60 per cent taken up by bookshelf faulting.

Beschreibung: Recent studies have analysed valuable compilations of data for the size-scaling of phytoplankton traits, but these cannot be employed directly in most large-scale modelling studies, which typically do not explicitly resolve the relevant trait values. Although some recent large-scale modelling studies resolve species composition and sorting within communities, most do not account for the observed flexible response of phytoplankton communities, such as the dynamic acclimation often observed in laboratory experiments. In order to derive a simple yet flexible model of phytoplankton growth that can be useful for a wide variety of ocean modelling applications, we combine two trade-offs, one for growth and the other for nutrient uptake, under the optimality assumption, i.e. that intracellular resources are dynamically allocated to maximize growth rate. This yields an explicit equation for growth as a function of nutrient concentration and daily averaged irradiance. We furthermore show how with this model effective Monod parameter values depend on both the underlying trait values and environmental conditions. We apply this new model to two contrasting time-series observation sites, including idealized simulations of size diversity. The flexible model responds differently compared with an inflexible control, suggesting that acclimation by individual species could impact models of plankton diversity.

Beschreibung: Ocean acidification is an escalating environmental issue and associated changes in the ocean carbonate system have implications for many calcifying organisms. The present study followed the growth of Sepia officinalis from early-stage embryos, through hatching, to 7-week-old juveniles. Responses of cuttlefish to elevated pCO(2) (hypercapnia) were investigated to test the impacts of near-future and extreme ocean acidification conditions on growth, developmental time, oxygen consumption, and yolk utilization as proxies for individual fitness. We further examined gross morphological characteristics of the internal calcareous cuttlebone to determine whether embryonically secreted shell lamellae are impacted by environmental hypercapnia. Embryonic growth was reduced and hatching delayed under elevated pCO(2), both at environmentally relevant levels (0.14 kPa pCO(2) similar to predicted ocean conditions in 2100) and extreme conditions (0.40 kPa pCO(2)). Comparing various metrics from control and intermediate treatments generally showed no significant difference in experimental measurements. Yet, results from the high pCO(2) treatment showed significant changes compared with controls and revealed a consistent general trend across the three treatment levels. The proportion of animal mass contributed by the cuttlebone increased in both elevated pCO(2) treatments. Gross cuttlebone morphology was affected under such conditions and cuttlebones of hypercapnic individuals were proportionally shorter. Embryonic shell morphology was maintained consistently in all treatments, despite compounding hypercapnia in the perivitelline fluid; however, post-hatching, hypercapnic animals developed denser cuttlebone laminae in shorter cuttlebones. Juvenile cuttlefish in acidified environments thus experience lower growth and yet increased calcification of their internal shell. The results of this study support recent findings that early cuttlefish life stages are more vulnerable towards hypercapnia than juveniles and adults, which may have negative repercussions on the biological fitness of cuttlefish hatchlings in future oceans.

Beschreibung: Annual growth zones in cod otoliths from the eastern Baltic stock are less discrete than in other cod stocks leading to biased age reading, which recently led to a failure of age-based assessment in the eastern Baltic cod stock. In this study, we explored the applicability of minor and trace element patterns in cod otoliths for age determination. By first identifying elements of interest in a stock without ageing problems, western Baltic cod, we then tested their applicability on another stock without ageing problems, North Sea cod, and finally applied this knowledge to estimate age of eastern Baltic cod. In western Baltic cod, matching patterns with respect to occurrence of minima and maxima in both otolith opacity and element concentrations were found for Cu, Zn, and Rb, and inverse patterns with Mg and Mn. No match was found for Pb, Ba, and Sr. In the test stock, the North Sea cod, the same patterns in Cu, Zn, Rb, Mg, and Mn signals occurred. All eastern Baltic cod with low visual contrast between growth zones exhibited clearly defined synchronous cycles in Cu, Zn, Rb and Pb. Using a combined finite differencing method and structural break models approach, the statistical significance of the local profile minima were identified, based on which their age could be estimated. Despite extensive environmental differences between the three areas examined, the element concentrations of Cu, Zn, and Rb were strongly correlated in all individuals with similar correlations in all three areas, suggesting that the incorporation mechanisms are the same for these elements and independent of environmental concentrations.

Beschreibung: Global warming and ocean acidification are among the most important stressors for aquatic ecosystems in the future. To investigate their direct and indirect effects on a near-natural plankton community, a multiple-stressor approach is needed. Hence, we set up mesocosms in a full-factorial design to study the effects of both warming and high CO2 on a Baltic Sea autumn plankton community, concentrating on the impacts on microzooplankton (MZP). MZP abundance, biomass, and species composition were analysed over the course of the experiment. We observed that warming led to a reduced time-lag between the phytoplankton bloom and an MZP biomass maximum. MZP showed a significantly higher growth rate and an earlier biomass peak in the warm treatments while the biomass maximum was not affected. Increased pCO2 did not result in any significant effects on MZP biomass, growth rate, or species composition irrespective of the temperature, nor did we observe any significant interactions between CO2 and temperature. We attribute this to the high tolerance of this estuarine plankton community to fluctuations in pCO2, often resulting in CO2 concentrations higher than the predicted end-of-century concentration for open oceans. In contrast, warming can be expected to directly affect MZP and strengthen its coupling with phytoplankton by enhancing its grazing pressure.

Beschreibung: In a recent publication (Froese et al., ICES Journal of Marine Science; doi:10.1093/icesjms/fsv122), we presented a critique of the balanced harvesting (BH) approach to fishing. A short section dealt with the size-spectrum models used to justify BH, wherein we pointed out the lack of realism of these models, which mostly represented ecosystems as consisting of a single cannibalistic species. Andersen et al. (ICES Journal of Marine Science; doi:10.1093/icesjms/fsv211) commented on our paper and suggested that we criticized size-spectrum models in general and that we supposedly made several erroneous statements. We stress that we only referred to the size-spectrum models that we cited, and we respond to each supposedly erroneous statement. We still believe that the size-spectrum models used to justify BH were highly unrealistic and not suitable for evaluating real-world fishing strategies. We agree with Andersen et al. that BH is unlikely to be a useful guiding principle for ecosystem-based fisheries management, for many reasons. The use of unrealistic models is one of them.