The Darwin Project’s Emily Zakem, Stephanie Dutkiewicz and Mick Follows show that physiological constraints and resource competition between phytoplankton and nitrifying microorganisms in the sunlit layer can yield this ocean trait. Continue reading
Category Archives: Nitrogen Fixation
Phytoplankton & Chips
Helen Hill | Darwin Project
Microbes mediate the global marine cycles of elements, modulating atmospheric CO2 and helping to maintain the oxygen we all breath yet there is much about them scientists still don’t understand. Now, an award from the Simons Foundation will give researchers from the Darwin Project access to bigger, better computing resources to model these communities and probe how they work. Continue reading
Life on the Edge – How shifting marine province boundaries could provide a new metric for global change
In their new competition theory paper, appearing in the 2014 issue of Biogeosciences, Dutkiewicz et al examine the sensitivity of the biogeography of nitrogen fixers to a warming climate and increased aeolian iron deposition in the context of a global earth system model. Continue reading
Mapping Nitrogen Fixation? Follow the Hydrogen.
The nitrogen cycle is fundamental to Earth’s biogeochemistry. Yet major quantitative uncertainties remain, particularly regarding the global oceanic nitrogen fixation rate. Continue reading
Dutkiewicz, S., Ward, B. A., Scott, J. R., and Follows, M. J. (2014) Understanding predicted shifts in diazotroph biogeography using resource competition theory, Biogeosciences, 11, 5445-5461, doi: 10.5194/bg-11-5445-2014.
Moore, R.M., M. Kienast, M. Fraser, J. Cullen, C. Deutsch, S. Dutkiewicz, M.J. Follows, and C.J. Somes (2014), Substantial underestimation of nitrogen fixation suggested by hydrogen supersaturations in the Atlantic, Journal of Geophysical Research - Oceans , 119, 4340-4350, doi: 10.1002/2014JC010017.
Darwin goes to Ocean Sciences 2014
Leaving the cold of a New England February behind, the Darwin team will be in full attendance at this year’s Ocean Sciences conference taking place February 23-28 in Honolulu, Hawaii.
Publication
Ward, B.A., S. Dutkiewicz, C.M. Moore and M.J. Follows (2013), Iron, phosphorus, and nitrogen supply ratios define the biogeography of nitrogen fixation Limnology and Oceanography, vol. 58, pp. 2059, doi: 10.4319/lo.2013.58.6.2059
Publication
Monteiro, F. and M.J. Follows (2012), On nitrogen fixation and preferential remineralization of phosphorus. Geophys. Res. Lett., 39, L06607, doi: 10.1029/2012GL050897
Publication
Dutkiewicz, S., B. A. Ward, F. Monteiro, and M. J. Follows (2012), Interconnection of nitrogen fixers and iron in the Pacific Ocean: Theory and numerical simulations, Global Biogeochem. Cycles, 26, GB1012, doi: 10.1029/2011GB004039