Microbes play a critical role in plant litter decomposition and influence the fate of carbon in rivers and riparian zones. When decomposing low-nutrient plant litter, microbes acquire nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) from the environment (i.e., nutrient immobilization), and this process is potentially sensitive to nutrient loading and changing climate. Nonetheless, environmental controls on immobilization ...

Research in global change ecology relies heavily on global climatic grids derived from estimates of air temperature in open areas at around 2 m above the ground. These climatic grids do not reflect conditions below vegetation canopies and near the ground surface, where critical ecosystem functions occur and most terrestrial species reside. Here, we provide global maps of soil temperature and bioclimatic ...

The highly chlorinated chemical Dechlorane Plus (DP) was introduced as a replacement flame retardant for Mirex, which is banned through the Stockholm Convention (SC) for its toxicity (T), environmental persistence (P), potential for bioaccumulation (B) and long-range environmental transport potential (LRETP). Currently, Dechlorane Plus is under consideration for listing under the Stockholm Convention ...

Psychrophilic methanotrophic bacteria are abundant and play an important role in methane removal in cold methanogenic environments, such as boreal and arctic terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems. They could be also applied in the bioconversion of biogas and natural gas into value-added products (e.g., chemicals and single-cell protein) in cold regions. Hence, isolation and genome sequencing of ...

Following their near extirpation by industrial whaling of the 20th century, the population status of Southern Hemisphere fin whales (SHFW) remains unknown. Systematic surveys estimating fin whale abundance in the Southern Ocean are not yet available. Records of fin whale sightings have been collected by a variety of organisations over the past few decades, incorporating both opportunistic data and ...

Knowledge of environmental preferences of the key planktonic species, such as Calanus copepods in the Arctic, is crucial to understand ecosystem function and its future under climate change. Here, we assessed the environmental conditions influencing the development stages of Atlantic Calanus finmarchicus and Arctic Calanus glacialis, and we quantified the extent to which their niches overlap by ...

David Lloyd George Noakes (1942–2020) is best known for his insatiable curiosity, his quick wit and dry sense of humor, his scientific contributions to the field of animal behaviour, and his ability to form and maintain long-lasting connections. His research interests were vast but remained grounded in early life history, behaviour, social behaviour, the evolution of behaviour, behavioural genetics, ...

A recent study demonstrated that an Arctic tidal strait, where a shoaled and constricted waterway increases tidally driven sub-ice currents and turbulence, represents a “hotspot” for ice algal production due to a hypothesized enhanced ocean-ice nutrient supply. Based on these findings, we sampled the bottom-ice algal community across the same tidal strait between the Finlayson Islands within Dease ...