Taxonomy term

nutrient

Coral Reef Roundup: December 2016

With multiple threats facing our coral reefs — from climate change to overfishing — and scientists continually studying the coral reefs beneath the waves, new findings are announced often. Here are a few of the latest updates.

29 Nov 2016

Nutrient deficiency delayed life after mass extinction

After Earth’s most severe mass extinction, life took up to 9 million years to recover — millions of years longer than after other extinction events. New research published in Geology suggests that a collapse in the ocean’s productivity might have been the cause.

25 Nov 2016

Nutrient runoff feeding Baltic Sea dead zone

Low-oxygen, or hypoxic, deep waters now extend over an area of about 60,000 square kilometers in the Baltic Sea, a tenfold increase compared to 115 years ago, according to a recent study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The hypoxic zone has fluctuated substantially in that period, but much of the expansion has occurred in recent decades as a result of large inputs of nutrients like nitrogen and phosphorus from human activities such as agriculture, reported Jacob Carstensen of Aarhus University in Denmark and colleagues.
 

03 Sep 2014

Tracking trace elements and isotopes in the oceans

A report from the GEOTRACES cruise across the Atlantic

For decades, scientists have been trying to piece together the enormously complicated puzzle that is the ocean. They have collected many different kinds of information, from trace elements like iron to tritium isotopes, from many different parts of the ocean. Bringing together these disparate pieces to form a more complete picture is crucial to understanding how human activities, the marine food web, the global carbon cycle and the circulation of seawater are all interconnected.

25 Apr 2011