Ocean sciences articles within Nature Communications

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  • Article
    | Open Access

    Corals living in naturally extreme environments such as mangrove lagoons have been considered as ‘super corals’ for reef conservation. However, this study shows that resistance in highly variable conditions comes with biological trade-offs that could compromise the suitability of these stress-tolerant corals for reef management under worsening climate change conditions.

    • Federica Scucchia
    • , Paul Zaslansky
    •  & Emma F. Camp

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Turbulent pair dispersion is relevant for mixing processes such as microplastics transport in the ocean or dynamics of water droplets in clouds. The authors present a geometrical framework and empirical evidence that elucidate the universality of the process across scales, while forming a bridge with the classical Richardson theory.

    • Ron Shnapp
    • , Stefano Brizzolara
    •  & Markus Holzner

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Petrels are wide-ranging, highly threatened seabirds that often ingest plastic. This study used tracking data for 7,137 petrels of 77 species to map global exposure risk and compare regions, species, and populations. The results show higher exposure risk for threatened species and stress the need for international cooperation to tackle marine litter.

    • Bethany L. Clark
    • , Ana P. B. Carneiro
    •  & Maria P. Dias

  • Article
    | Open Access

    This study presents an absolute metabolic index that quantifies how ocean temperature, dissolved oxygen and organismal mass interact to constrain the oxygen budget an organism can use to fuel aerobic metabolism. The index is calibrated with physiological measurements from purple sea urchin and red abalone and the authors test if the index can delimit the distribution of these two species.

    • Murray I. Duncan
    • , Fiorenza Micheli
    •  & Erik A. Sperling

  • Article
    | Open Access

    In this study, the authors use a global dataset of satellite-derived shoreline positions, and demonstrate that their interannual evolution is dominated by El Niño through its worldwide influence of sea level, river discharge and ocean waves

    • Rafael Almar
    • , Julien Boucharel
    •  & Fei-Fei Jin

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Using two different mass spectrometric platforms, authors demonstrate how metabolomic data fusion and multivariate analysis can be used to accurately identify the geographic origin and production method of salmon.

    • Yunhe Hong
    • , Nicholas Birse
    •  & Christopher T. Elliott

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Seasonal stratification on the northwest European Shelf is found to be triggered by rainfall from passing storms. Further links are made between the onset of stratification to large-scale pressure changes in the North Atlantic.

    • J. E. Jardine
    • , M. Palmer
    •  & J. Wihsgott

  • Comment
    | Open Access

    The Tara Pacific program and expedition focused on coral reefs across the Pacific Ocean and used a coordinated sampling effort to address questions at multiple scales using a common suite of samples. Here, we highlight some of the Tara Pacific achievements, discussing the benefits of long-duration sea expeditions for investigating a wide array of research questions within a selected ecosystem.

    • Serge Planes
    •  & Denis Allemand

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Using data from the Tara Pacific expedition to investigate symbiont fidelity and patterns of gene expression across a thermal gradient, this study shows that Pocillopora corals have a three-tiered strategy of thermal acclimatization that is underpinned by host–photosymbiont specificity, host transcriptomic plasticity, and differential photosymbiotic associations under extreme warming.

    • Eric J. Armstrong
    • , Julie Lê-Hoang
    •  & Patrick Wincker

  • Article
    | Open Access

    From profiling the gene expression of five coral species exposed to Stony Coral Tissue Loss Disease (SCTLD), this study finds signatures of in situ degradation of Symbiodiniaceae experiencing photosystem dysfunction. These results indicate that Symbiodiniaceae may be the target of initial SCTLD infection, which subsequently induces host responses and tissue loss.

    • Kelsey M. Beavers
    • , Emily W. Van Buren
    •  & Laura D. Mydlarz

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Changes in climate preconditioned large-scale, recurrent Miocene to Pleistocene Antarctic submarine landslides through variations in biological productivity, ice proximity and ocean circulation, posing tsunami risk to Southern Hemisphere populations.

    • Jenny A. Gales
    • , Robert M. McKay
    •  & Zhifang Xiong

  • Article
    | Open Access

    This global analysis reveals that artificial light from cities is associated with the disruption of synchronised egg release by corals. This situation could reduce coral reproductive health, hindering conservation efforts in the face of climate change and other anthropogenic impacts.

    • Thomas W. Davies
    • , Oren Levy
    •  & Tim Smyth

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The authors find that whether the Labrador Current transports its cold, relatively fresh, and well oxygenated waters towards the subpolar North Atlantic or the eastern American coast depends on large-scale forcing, partly driven by winds over the North Atlantic.

    • Mathilde Jutras
    • , Carolina O. Dufour
    •  & Lauryn C. Talbot

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Combining geological evidence and modelling, Crichton and others find life in the ocean Twilight Zone (200 m to 1000 m depth) is vulnerable to warming due to lower food supply. High emissions may lead to severe depletion and extinction in this habitat

    • Katherine A. Crichton
    • , Jamie D. Wilson
    •  & Paul N. Pearson

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Is phosphorous a limiting factor for life on ocean worlds (e.g. Europa and Enceladus)? Calculated dissolved phosphate concentrations from a wide range of possible water-rock reactions suggest cell populations larger than those observed in Earth’s deep oceans could be supported.

    • Noah G. Randolph-Flagg
    • , Tucker Ely
    •  & Tori M. Hoehler

  • Article
    | Open Access

    This study shows that the total energy loss of gravity currents has a non-linear dependence on the work required to keep sediment in suspension, highlighting the importance of large-scale mixing for the particulate transport of gravity currents.

    • Sojiro Fukuda
    • , Marijke G. W. de Vet
    •  & Robert M. Dorrell

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The capacity of coral reefs to keep pace with sea-level rise is central to their ability to continue to provide shoreline protection to vulnerable coastal communities. Here, the study shows that whereas restoration has the potential to minimize climate-change impacts, doing nothing will amplify them.

    • Lauren T. Toth
    • , Curt D. Storlazzi
    •  & Richard B. Aronson

  • Article
    | Open Access

    By combining fisheries, nutrient, and carbon cycling data, this synthesis suggests that marine kelp forests, a dominant but often undescribed habitat, provide services with a potential value of $111,000/ha/year and a global yearly value of $500 billion.

    • Aaron M. Eger
    • , Ezequiel M. Marzinelli
    •  & Adriana Vergés

  • Article
    | Open Access

    In contrast to the North Atlantic, the projected overturning circulation in the Nordic Seas increases throughout most of the 21st century in global climate model simulations. The Nordic Seas could therefore be a stabilizing factor in the future AMOC.

    • Marius Årthun
    • , Helene Asbjørnsen
    •  & Kjetil Våge

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Biological carbon pump pathways combine to transport organic carbon into the deep ocean. This study shows that sinking particles sequester 4 Pg C, active transport sequesters 1 Pg C, and subduction sequesters 0.8 Pg C in the California Current Ecosystem.

    • Michael R. Stukel
    • , John P. Irving
    •  & Natalia Yingling

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Here the authors show that Chinstrap penguins play a significant role in iron recycling, essential for phytoplankton growth and carbon sequestration, recycling yearly 521 tonnes of iron, half of what they did 40 years ago due to population decline.

    • Oleg Belyaev
    • , Erica Sparaventi
    •  & Antonio Tovar-Sánchez

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Koch and Brown et al. led a collaborative and comprehensive synthesis that shows the transfer of ice algal carbon is widespread throughout the Arctic marine food web and contributes to supporting organisms throughout the dark winter months

    • Chelsea W. Koch
    • , Thomas A. Brown
    •  & David J. Yurkowski

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Barents Sea shelf experienced >30 episodes of glaciation which scraped off layers of rocks and led to petroleum reservoirs exposed onto the seafloor. Today, such uncapped reservoirs produce strong fluxes of methane gas and oil into the ocean.

    • Pavel Serov
    • , Rune Mattingsdal
    •  & Karin Andreassen

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Strong negative climatological air-sea interactions effectively damp warming over the eastern Indian Ocean, resulting in weakening of the winds therein. This, in turn, changes the strength of ocean currents, which is considered as the primary mechanism responsible for modulating warming patterns.

    • Sahil Sharma
    • , Kyung-Ja Ha
    •  & Eui-Seok Chung

  • Article
    | Open Access

    This study identifies the rapidness of marine mineral reactions, directly after an extreme rainfall event. The reactions have the potential to affect marine cation and CO2 cycling, impacting element turnover on human time scales

    • Sonja Geilert
    • , Daniel A. Frick
    •  & Andrew W. Dale

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The authors investigate marine heatwaves on the ocean bottom in the shallow waters surrounding North America. Relative to their surface counterparts, bottom marine heatwaves are often more intense, more persistent, and can occur independently.

    • Dillon J. Amaya
    • , Michael G. Jacox
    •  & Adam S. Phillips

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Estimating the amount of plastics that enters the ocean is subject to significant uncertainty. This study uses ocean plastic abundance data to refine our estimate and reduce this uncertainty, enabling more effective control and mitigation polices.

    • Yanxu Zhang
    • , Peipei Wu
    •  & Eddy Y. Zeng

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Based on two high-resolution simulations, the authors find that submesoscale eddies significantly boost poleward oceanic heat transport in Antarctic waters by strengthening transport capability of mesoscale eddies through inverse energy cascade.

    • Zhiwei Zhang
    • , Yuelin Liu
    •  & Jiwei Tian

  • Article
    | Open Access

    This study reports a dense, late summer phytoplankton bloom in the Southern Ocean that accumulated unusually high levels of organic matter and supported feeding hot spots for birds and whales. The authors show that this recurring open ocean bloom is driven by anomalies in easterly winds that push sea ice southwards and favour the upwelling of deep waters enriched in hydrothermal iron.

    • Sebastien Moreau
    • , Tore Hattermann
    •  & Harald Steen

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Little is known about genetic heterogeneity within deep sea cold seep microbial populations. From examining 39 abundant microbial species identified in sediment layers below the sea floor and across six cold seep sites, this study reports that their evolutionary trajectories are depth-dependent and differ across phylogenetic clades.

    • Xiyang Dong
    • , Yongyi Peng
    •  & Casey R. J. Hubert

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Temperature shapes the adaptation and composition of microbiomes, but whether their enzymes drive the thermal response remains unknown. Using an analysis of seven enzyme classes from worldwide marine microbiome data, this study shows that enzyme thermal properties explain microbial thermal plasticity and they are both finely tuned by the thermal variability of the environment.

    • Ramona Marasco
    • , Marco Fusi
    •  & Daniele Daffonchio

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