Marine Biology Commons^™

Saturating Relationship Between Phytoplankton Growth Rate And Nutrient Concentration Explained By Macromolecular Allocation, Jongsun Kim, Gabrielle Armin, Keisuke Inomura

School of Earth, Environmental, & Marine Sciences Faculty Publications

Phytoplankton account for about a half of photosynthesis in the world, making them a key player in the ecological and biogeochemical systems. One of the key traits of phytoplankton is their growth rate because it indicates their productivity and affects their competitive capability. The saturating relationship between phytoplankton growth rate and environmental nutrient concentration has been widely observed yet the mechanisms behind the relationship remain elusive. Here we use a mechanistic model and metadata of phytoplankton to show that the saturating relationship between growth rate and nitrate concentration can be interpreted by intracellular macromolecular allocation. At low nitrate levels, the …

Impacts Of Plastic Pollution On A Pelagic Marine Mammal, The Northern Elephant Seal, Lauren M. Kashiwabara

University of the Pacific Theses and Dissertations

As plastic pollution increases, top marine predators such as marine mammals are becoming increasingly susceptible to plastic particles and their additives. Plastic particles have been found in gastrointestinal tracts and scat of many marine mammals, and quantifying plastic pollution in those that are pelagic can provide insight into plastic pollution in mesopelagic ecosystems that are just beginning to be analyzed. Adapting well-developed laboratory techniques for microplastic (MP) isolation (i.e. density separation and chemical digestion), I isolated MPs from the scat of the deepest diving pinniped, the northern elephant seal (NES), and found that100% of scat samples (n=11) contained high counts …

A Trait‐Based Framework For Assessing The Vulnerability Of Marine Species To Human Impacts, Nathalie Butt, Benjamin S. Halpern, Casey S. O'Hara, A. Louise Allcock, Beth Polidoro, Samantha Sherman, Maria Byrne, Charles Birkeland, Ross G. Dwyer, Melanie Frazier, Bradley K. Woodworth, Claudia P. Arango, Michael J. Kingsford, Vinay Udyawer, Pat Hutchings, Elliot Scanes, Emily Jane Mcclaren, Sara M. Maxwell, Guillermo Diaz-Pulido, Emma Dugan, Blake Alexander Simmons, Amelia S. Wenger, Christi Linardich, Carissa J. Klein

Biological Sciences Faculty Publications

Marine species and ecosystems are widely affected by anthropogenic stressors, ranging from pollution and fishing to climate change. Comprehensive assessments of how species and ecosystems are impacted by anthropogenic stressors are critical for guiding conservation and management investments. Previous global risk or vulnerability assessments have focused on marine habitats, or on limited taxa or specific regions. However, information about the susceptibility of marine species across a range of taxa to different stressors everywhere is required to predict how marine biodiversity will respond to human pressures. We present a novel framework that uses life-history traits to assess species’ vulnerability to a …

Fish And Invertebrate Use Of Restored Vs. Natural Oyster Reefs In A Shallow Temperate Latitude Estuary, Jonathan H. Grabowski, Christopher J. Baillie, Adam Baukus, Rachael Carlyle, F. Joel Fodrie, Rachel K. Gittman, A. Randall Hughes, David L. Kimbro, Juhyung Lee, Hunter S. Lenihan, Sean P. Powers, Kevin Sullivan

University Faculty and Staff Publications

Coastal marine habitats continue to be degraded, thereby compelling largescale restoration in many parts of the world. Whether restored habitats function similarly to natural habitats and fully recover lost ecosystem services is unclear. In estuaries, oyster reefs have been degraded by multiple anthropogenic activities including destructive fishing practices and reduced water quality, motivating restoration to maintain oyster fisheries and other ecosystem services, often at relatively high cost. We compared fish and invertebrate communities on recently restored (0–1 year post-restoration), older restored (3–4 years post-restoration), and natural oyster reefs to determine if and when restored reefs support functionally similar faunal communities. …

Element Contamination In Port Everglades – Preparing For Ecological Impacts, Laura White

All HCAS Student Capstones, Theses, and Dissertations

Port dredging is of economic importance worldwide but its impacts to the marine environment through the remobilization of elemental contaminants are not well understood. A massive deepening and widening of Port Everglades, Florida, will begin in 2023. Contaminated sediment disturbed during the dredging process could be released and prove to be harmful to three coral reef tracks located beginning 1.5 miles away from the port. This study focused on identifying and quantifying 14 different trace elements: arsenic (As), cadmium (Cd), cobalt (Co), chromium (Cr), copper (Cu), mercury (Hg), lead (Pb), manganese (Mn), molybdenum (Mo), nickel (Ni), selenium (Se), tin (Sn), …

On Inter-Organizational Trust, Control And Risk In Transboundary Fisheries Governance, Gordon M. Hickey, Hunter T. Snyder, Jasper R. Devries, Owen Temby

School of Earth, Environmental, & Marine Sciences Faculty Publications

Inter-organizational collaboration is often considered essential to transboundary fishery governance, due, in part, to the high levels of task interdependence, the remote and often treacherous conditions, and the limited levels of information available to any policy actor on resource status. In the high seas, Regional Fisheries Management Organizations (RFMOs) are responsible for sustainably managing highly migratory and straddling fish stocks through the implementation of ecosystem-based approaches and ensuring adequate inter-jurisdictional cooperation. A central question facing RFMO governance is therefore how to structure and sustain inter-organizational transboundary collaboration under high uncertainty? This paper presents the case of the North Atlantic Salmon …

Methodological Challenges In Studying Trust In Natural Resources Management, Antonia Sohns, Gordon M. Hickey, Jasper R. De Vries, Owen Temby

School of Earth, Environmental, & Marine Sciences Faculty Publications

Trust has been identified as a central characteristic of successful natural resource management (NRM), particularly in the context of implementing participatory approaches to stakeholder engagement. Trust is, however, a multi-dimensional and multi-level concept that is known to evolve recursively through time, challenging efforts to empirically measure its impact on collaboration in different NRM settings. In this communication we identify some of the challenges associated with conceptualizing and operationalizing trust in NRM field research, and pay particular attention to the inter-relationships between the concepts of trust, perceived risk and control due to their multidimensional and interacting roles in inter-organizational collaboration. The …

Binational Reflections On Pathways To Groundwater Security In The Mexico–United States Borderlands, Rosario Sanchez, José Agustin Breña-Naranjo, Alfonso Rivera, Randall T. Hanson, Antonio Hernández-Espriú, Rick J. Hogeboom, Anita Milman, Jude A. Benavides, Adrian Pedrozo-Acuña, Julio Cesar Soriano-Monzalvo

School of Earth, Environmental, & Marine Sciences Faculty Publications

Shared groundwater resources between Mexico and the United States are facing unprecedented stressors. We reflect on how to improve water security for groundwater systems in the border region. Our reflection begins with the state of groundwater knowledge, and the challenges groundwater resources face from a physical, societal and institutional perspective. We conclude that the extent of ongoing cooperation frameworks, joint and remaining research efforts, from which alternative strategies can emerge, still need to be developed. The way forward offers a variety of cooperation models as the future offers rather complex, shared and multidisciplinary water challenges to the Mexico–US borderlands.

First Ecological Characterization Of Whip Black Coral Assemblages (Hexacorallia: Antipatharia) In The Easter Island Ecoregion, Southeastern Pacific, Jan M. Tapia-Guerra, Cynthia M. Asorey, Erin E. Easton, Daniel Wagner, Matthias Gorny, Javier Sellanes

School of Earth, Environmental, & Marine Sciences Faculty Publications

One of the main priorities of marine scientific research is to provide practical information and guidance for biodiversity conservation and management. In this context, the identification of key and fragile habitat-forming species is particularly important. Despite their ecological importance, whip corals in the order Antipatharia remain poorly studied around the world, and especially in the South Pacific. During recent expeditions to explore mesophotic and deep benthic habitats around Rapa Nui (Easter Island), dense assemblages of whip black corals were observed in situ. We here report the first detailed description of the distribution and abundance of these black coral assemblages …

Overfishing Drives Over One-Third Of All Sharks And Rays Toward A Global Extinction Crisis, Nicholas K. Dulvy, Nathan Pacoureau, Cassandra L. Rigby, Riley A. Pollom, Rima W. Jabado, David A. Ebert, Brittany Finucci, Caroline M. Pollock, Jessica Cheok, Danielle H. Derrick, Katelyn B. Herman, C. Samantha Sherman, Wade J. Vanderwright, Julia M. Lawson, Rachel H.L. Walls, John K. Carlson, Patricia Charvet, Kinattumkara K. Bineesh, Daniel Fernando, Gina M. Ralph, Jay H. Matsushiba, Craig Hilton-Taylor, Sonja V. Fordham, Colin A. Simpfendorfer

Biological Sciences Faculty Publications

The scale and drivers of marine biodiversity loss are being revealed by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List assessment process. We present the first global reassessment of 1,199 species in Class Chondrichthyes-sharks, rays, and chimeras. The first global assessment (in 2014) concluded that one-quarter (24%) of species were threatened. Now, 391 (32.6%) species are threatened with extinction. When this percentage of threat is applied to Data Deficient species, more than one-third (37.5%) of chondrichthyans are estimated to be threatened, with much of this change resulting from new information. Three species are Critically Endangered (Possibly Extinct), representing …

Disentangling Diverse Responses To Climate Change Among Global Marine Ecosystem Models, Ryan F. Heneghan, Eric Galbraith, Julia L. Blanchard, Cheryl S. Harrison, Nicolas Barrier, Catherine Bulman, William Cheung, Marta Coli, Tyler D. Eddy, Maite Erauskin-Extramiana

School of Earth, Environmental, & Marine Sciences Faculty Publications

Climate change is warming the ocean and impacting lower trophic level (LTL) organisms. Marine ecosystem models can provide estimates of how these changes will propagate to larger animals and impact societal services such as fisheries, but at present these estimates vary widely. A better understanding of what drives this inter-model variation will improve our ability to project fisheries and other ecosystem services into the future, while also helping to identify uncertainties in process understanding. Here, we explore the mechanisms that underlie the diversity of responses to changes in temperature and LTLs in eight global marine ecosystem models from the Fisheries …

Next-Generation Ensemble Projections Reveal Higher Climate Risks For Marine Ecosystems, Derek P. Tittensor, Camilla Novaglio, Cheryl S. Harrison, Ryan F. Heneghan, Nicolas Barrier, Daniele Bianchi, Laurent Bopp, Andrea Bryndum-Buchholz, Gregory L. Britten, Matthias Büchner

School of Earth, Environmental, & Marine Sciences Faculty Publications

Projections of climate change impacts on marine ecosystems have revealed long-term declines in global marine animal biomass and unevenly distributed impacts on fisheries. Here we apply an enhanced suite of global marine ecosystem models from the Fisheries and Marine Ecosystem Model Intercomparison Project (Fish-MIP), forced by new-generation Earth system model outputs from Phase 6 of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP6), to provide insights into how projected climate change will affect future ocean ecosystems. Compared with the previous generation CMIP5-forced Fish-MIP ensemble, the new ensemble ecosystem simulations show a greater decline in mean global ocean animal biomass under both strong-mitigation …

Moving Conferences Online: Lessons Learned From An International Virtual Meeting, Paris V. Stefanoudis, Leann M. Biancani, Sergio Cambronero-Solano, Malcolm R. Clark, Jonathan T. Copley, Erin E. Easton, Franziska Elmer, Steven H. D. Haddock, Santiago Herrera, Ilysa S. Iglesias

School of Earth, Environmental, & Marine Sciences Faculty Publications

We consider the opportunities and challenges associated with organizing a conference online, using a case study of a medium-sized (approx. 400 participants) international conference held virtually in August 2020. In addition, we present quantifiable evidence of the participants’ experience using the results from an online post-conference questionnaire. Although the virtual meeting was not able to replicate the in-person experience in some aspects (e.g. less engagement between participants) the overwhelming majority of respondents found the meeting an enjoyable experience and would join similar events again. Notably, there was a strong desire for future inperson meetings to have at least some online …

A Drone-Based Survey For Large, Basking Freshwater Turtle Species, Amy P. Bogolin, Drew R. Davis, Richard Kline, Abdullah Rahman

School of Earth, Environmental, & Marine Sciences Faculty Publications

Conservation concerns are increasing for numerous freshwater turtle species, including Pseudemys gorzugi, which has led to a call for more research. However, traditional sampling methodologies are often time consuming, labor intensive, and invasive, restricting the amount of data that can be collected. Biases of traditional sampling methods can further impair the quality of the data collected, and these shortfalls may discourage their use. The use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs, drones) for conducting wildlife surveys has recently demonstrated the potential to bridge gaps in data collection by offering a less labor intensive, minimally invasive, and more efficient process. Photographs and …

Complete Mitochondrial Genomes Of Two Species Of Stichopathes Brook, 1889 (Hexacorallia: Antipatharia: Antipathidae) From Rapa Nui (Easter Island), Cynthia M. Asorey, Javier Sellanes, Daniel Wagner, Erin E. Easton

School of Earth, Environmental, & Marine Sciences Faculty Publications

We report the complete mitochondrial genomes of two antipatharian species, Stichopathes sp. SCBUCN-8849 and Stichopathes sp. SCBUCN-8850, collected between 120 and 180 m depth off Rapa Nui (∼ −27.1°, −109.4°). The size of the two mitogenomes are 20,389 bp (29.0% A, 15.2% C, 19.9% G, and 35.9% T) and 20,463 bp (29.0% A, 15.3% C, 19.9% G, and 35.8% T), respectively. Both mitogenomes have the classic Hexacorallia gene content of 13 protein-coding, two rRNA, and two tRNA genes plus a COX1 intron with embedded HEG as found in the Antipathidae and other antipatharian families.

Land-Use Dynamics Associated With Mangrove Deforestation For Aquaculture And The Subsequent Abandonment Of Ponds, Aslan Aslan, Abdullah F. Rahman, Scott M. Robeson, Muhammad Ilman

School of Earth, Environmental, & Marine Sciences Faculty Publications

Highlights

• SAR data is useful for tracking dynamic changes in mangrove ecosystem.

• Time series SAR data can be used to estimate lifespan of pond.

• During 22+ years, over half of the mangrove forest in Mahakam Delta has been converted to aquaculture.

Abstract

The objective of this study was to evaluate the spatiotemporal dynamics of large area mangrove deforestation, aquaculture pond building, and the subsequent abandonment of ponds in a large delta in Indonesia, namely the Mahakam Delta. So, we developed and applied a novel methodology for exploring the lifespan of aquaculture ponds. Using historical multispectral and radar data, the …

The Influence Of Bottom Type And Water Column Stratification On Reef Fish Community Structure At Gray’S Reef National Marine Sanctuary, Bridget Campbell

Honors Theses

Understanding the physical and oceanographic differences across reef habitats can help researchers assess how those differences influence fish distribution and community structure, which leads to a better understanding of what a healthy reef system looks like. The traditional methods used to assess fish communities on temperate reefs are limited and often focus solely on either the reef structure or water column conditions alone. An assessment of both data sets yields a more complete understanding of the ecosystem as a whole. In this study, Gray’s Reef National Marine Sanctuary (GRNMS) was surveyed both inside and outside a Marine Protected Area (MPA) …

Assessing Changes In Clusters Of Wildlife Road Mortalities After The Construction Of Wildlife Mitigation Structures, Thomas J. Yamashita, Trinity D. Livingston, Kevin W. Ryer, John H. Young Jr., Richard Kline

School of Earth, Environmental, & Marine Sciences Faculty Publications

Collisions with vehicles can be a major threat to wildlife populations, so wildlife mitigation structures, including exclusionary fencing and wildlife crossings, are often constructed. To assess mitigation structure effectiveness, it is useful to compare wildlife road mortalities (WRMs) before, during, and after mitigation structure construction; however, differences in survey methodologies may make comparisons of counts impractical. Location-based cluster analyses provide a means to assess how WRM spatial patterns have changed over time. We collected WRM data between 2015 and 2019 on State Highway 100 in Texas, USA. Five wildlife crossings and exclusionary fencing were installed in this area between September …

A Two-Stage Approach To Integrate Vessel Geo-Tracking Data And Logbooks For Monitoring Fishing Activity Of Coastal Fisheries In Waters Off Northwestern Taiwan, Yi-Jou Lee, Nan-Jay Su, Cheng-Hsin Liao, Wei-Chuan Chiang, Chun-Huei Li

Journal of Marine Science and Technology–Taiwan

Catch and fishing effort data are fundamental information to stock assessment and fisheries management, but difficult to obtain without the support of administration and sound fishery data collection system. This study integrated various sources of data from a simplified vessel geo-tracking system and logbooks from interviews with captains of coastal gillnet fisheries. We developed a two-step approach based on hierarchical cluster analysis to characterize the operation patterns and infer the fishing activities of the fishery. Results showed that the fishing effort in terms of operation duration could be estimated precisely for various vessel sizes, with catch composition and harvest information …

Blue Carbon In South Florida's Mangroves: The Role Of Large Roots And Necromass, Zoë I. Shribman

LSU Master's Theses

Blue carbon sequestration and storage in mangroves largely result from belowground biomass allocation in response to flooded anaerobic soil conditions and nutrient availability. Biomass allocation to belowground roots is a major driver of mangrove soil formation and organic matter accumulation leading to blue carbon storage potential. Belowground biomass sampling in mangroves is labor intensive, limiting data availability on biomass stocks, particularly for large roots (>20 mm diameter) and necromass (dead roots). The mangrove nutrient model (NUMAN) uses mostly literature values to parameterize a soil cohort approach to simulate depth distribution of root mass and organic carbon concentration. We evaluated …

Otoliths Of South-Western Australian Fish: A Photographic Catalogue, Chris Dowling, Kim Smith, Elaine Lek, Joshua Brown

Fisheries Research Reports

Due to the species-specific nature of otoliths and given they are often the only part of the fish preserved when fish die, otolith catalogues can be used in numerous applications, such as diet studies in fish eating animals, including pinnipeds, fish and sea birds; archaeological purposes such as reconstructing indigenous people’s diets from otoliths found in middens or evolutionary history of fish species by comparing fossilized otoliths. Given the unique mixture of subtropical and temperate fish, including many endemic species that occur off the southwest corner of WA having a catalogue for this area is extremely important for people working …

Connecting Communities To Coastal Resilience: Enhancing Sustainability Through Public Participation In Salt Marsh Management And Restoration In Suffolk County, Ny, Jennifer L. Mcgivern

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Coastal resiliency is becoming significantly more critical to the livelihood of coastal communities as the frequency and intensity of storm events increases and is exacerbated by rising sea levels due to climate change. In October 2012 Superstorm Sandy impacted the New York-New Jersey area costing over $70 billion in storm damages and 147 lives lost, as storm surges surpassed record highs for the region. Protruding more than 100 miles into the Atlantic Ocean with over 1,000 miles of shoreline, Long Island is particularly vulnerable to the increasingly ferocious and numerous storms as well as the rising sea levels that climate …

Molecular Characterization And Expression Of Cytochrome P450 Aromatase In Atlantic Croaker Brain: Regulation By Antioxidant Status And Nitric Oxide Synthase During Hypoxia Stress, Md Saydur Rahman, Peter Thomas

School of Earth, Environmental, & Marine Sciences Faculty Publications

We have previously shown that nitric oxide synthase (NOS, an enzyme) is significantly increased during hypoxic stress in Atlantic croaker brains and modulated by an antioxidant (AOX). However, the influence of NOS and AOX on cytochrome P450 aromatase (AROM, CYP19a1, an enzyme) activity on vertebrate brains during hypoxic stress is largely unknown. In this study, we characterized brain AROM (bAROM, CYP19a1b) cDNA in croaker and examined the interactive effects of hypoxia and a NOS-inhibitor or AOX on AROM activity. The amino acid sequence of croaker bAROM cDNA is highly homologous (76–80%) to other marine teleost bAROM cDNAs. Both real-time PCR …

Endophytic Beauveria Bassiana Increases Galling Of ‘Rutgers’ Tomato Roots With Meloidogyne Incognita, Shalini Yerukala, Ernest C. Bernard, Kimberly D. Gwinn, David M. Butler, Parwinder Grewal, Bonnie H. Ownley

School of Earth, Environmental, & Marine Sciences Faculty Publications

Beauveria bassiana is endophytic in many plant species and has been shown to protect host plants against insect pests and plant pathogens. However, less is known about its activity against plant-parasitic nematodes. In vitro and plant assays were conducted to determine the effect of B. bassiana 11-98 (Bb) on Meloidogyne incognita (root-knot nematode; RKN). Beauveria bassiana was confirmed as an endophyte in ‘Rutgers’ tomato and colonization patterns of Bb in ‘Rutgers’ (highly susceptible to RKN) were compared with those in ‘Mountain Spring’ (less susceptible to RKN). In greenhouse tests with ‘Rutgers’ at 30 and 60 days after treatment (DAT) with …

Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons And The Microbiomes Of Two Benthic Species, Samantha Ells

Master's Theses

The presence of oil has been shown to affect the microbiomes of the water column, sediments, and organisms, both by altering the diversity and the composition of those microbial communities. If the microbiome is altered it may no longer provide benefits to its host organism, impacting its ability to survive. Thus, it is important to understand the effects of large-scale contamination events including the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. This study set out to examine the effects of oil exposure on the microbiome of two benthic species, southern flounder (Paralichthys lethostigma) and eastern oysters (Crassostrea virginica) to further understand the effects …

Testing A Global Standard For Quantifying Species Recovery And Assessing Conservation Impact, Molly K. Grace, H Resit Akcakaya, Elizabeth L. Bennett, Thomas M. Brooks, Anna Heath, Simon Hedges, Craig Hilton-Taylor, Michael Hoffmann, Axel Hochkirch, Richard Jenkins, David A. Keith, Barney Long, David P. Mallon, Erik Meijaard, E J. Milner-Gulland, Jon Paul Rodriguez, P J. Stephenson, Simon N. Stuart, Richard P. Young, David Fairclough

Fisheries Research Articles

Recognizing the imperative to evaluate species recovery and conservation impact, in 2012 the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) called for development of a “Green List of Species” (now the IUCN Green Status of Species). A draft Green Status framework for assessing species’ progress toward recovery, published in 2018, proposed 2 separate but interlinked components: a standardized method (i.e., measurement against benchmarks of species’ viability, functionality, and preimpact distribution) to determine current species recovery status (herein species recovery score) and application of that method to estimate past and potential future impacts of conservation based on 4 metrics ( …

Protistan Grazing Impacts Microbial Communities And Carbon Cycling At Deep-Sea Hydrothermal Vents, Sarah K. Hu, Erica L. Herrera, Amy R. Smith, Maria G. Pachiadaki, Virginia P. Edgcomb, Sean P. Sylva, Eric W. Chan, Jeffrey S. Seewald, Christopher R. German, Julie A. Huber

School of Earth, Environmental, & Marine Sciences Faculty Publications

Microbial eukaryotes (or protists) in marine ecosystems are a link between primary producers and all higher trophic levels, and the rate at which heterotrophic protistan grazers consume microbial prey is a key mechanism for carbon transport and recycling in microbial food webs. At deep-sea hydrothermal vents, chemosynthetic bacteria and archaea form the base of a food web that functions in the absence of sunlight, but the role of protistan grazers in these highly productive ecosystems is largely unexplored. Here, we pair grazing experiments with a molecular survey to quantify protistan grazing and to characterize the composition of vent-associated protists in …

Comparative Study Of Leachate Characterization: Implication For Sustainable Environmental Management, Osakpolor Marvellous Omorogieva, Victory Itua Igberase

School of Earth, Environmental, & Marine Sciences Faculty Publications

Understanding the sources of environmental stressors, the role of geology, climate and technology would provide a guide to solving the problems posed by such stressor. The study examine the sources of wastes in Ikhueniro open dumpsite located in Benin city, Nigeria and characterize the leachate emanating from it. This will assist in adequate design of managerial scheme to tackle the menace posed by it while putting into consideration the role of geology, climate and technology. The key objectives are to carry out field study, characterize wastes in the dumpsite and collect raw leachate emanating from the wastes heap in order …

Deep-Sea Biodiversity At The Extremes Of The Salas Y Gómez And Nazca Ridges With Implications For Conservation, Alan M. Friedlander, Whitney Goodell, Jonatha Giddens, Erin E. Easton, Daniel Wagner

School of Earth, Environmental, & Marine Sciences Faculty Publications

The Salas y Gómez and Nazca ridges are underwater mountain chains that stretch across 2,900 km in the southeastern Pacific and are recognized for their high biodiversity value and unique ecological characteristics. Explorations of deep-water ecosystems have been limited in this region, and elsewhere globally. To characterize community composition of mesophotic and deep-sea demersal fauna at seamounts in the region, we conducted expeditions to Rapa Nui (RN) and Salas y Gómez (SyG) islands in 2011 and Desventuradas Islands in 2013. Remote autonomous baited-cameras were used to conduct stationary video surveys between 150–1,850 m at RN/SyG (N = 20) and 75–2,363 …

In-Depth Analysis Of N2o Fluxes In Tropical Forest Soils Of The Congo Basin Combining Isotope And Functional Gene Analysis, Nora Gallarotti, Matti Barthel, Elizabeth Verhoeven, Engil Isadora Pujol Pereira, Marijn Bauters, Simon Baumgartner, Travis W. Drake, Pascal Boeckx, Joachim Mohn, Manon Longepierre

School of Earth, Environmental, & Marine Sciences Faculty Publications

Primary tropical forests generally exhibit large gaseous nitrogen (N) losses, occurring as nitric oxide (NO), nitrous oxide (N2O) or elemental nitrogen (N2). The release of N2O is of particular concern due to its high global warming potential and destruction of stratospheric ozone. Tropical forest soils are predicted to be among the largest natural sources of N2O; however, despite being the world’s second-largest rainforest, measurements of gaseous N-losses from forest soils of the Congo Basin are scarce. In addition, long-term studies investigating N2O fluxes from different forest ecosystem types (lowland and montane forests) are scarce. In this study we show that …