Reporting by Helen Hill for the MIT Darwin Project
The fourth Workshop on Trait-Based Approaches to Ocean Life, held August 18-21, 2019 at Chicheley Hall in Buckinghamshire in the UK was a wonderful opportunity for Darwin Group members to catch up with former colleagues while sharing current directions in marine ecology viewed through a traits lens.
Death, R., J.L. Wadham, F. Monteiro, A.M. Le Brocq, M. Tranter, A. Ridgwell, A., S. Dutkiewicz, and R. Raiswell, (2014) Antarctic Ice Sheet fertilises the Southern Ocean, Biogeosciences, 11, 2635-2643, doi: 10.5194/bg-11-2635-2014
Monteiro, F. and M.J. Follows (2012), On nitrogen fixation and preferential remineralization of phosphorus. Geophys. Res. Lett., 39, L06607, doi: 10.1029/2012GL050897
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
Nitrogen is an essential component of all cells. It is used to make the amino acid building blocks of proteins, and is also required in the nucleic acids of DNA and RNA. Although nitrogen extremely abundant in the open ocean, it is mostly found in dissolved N2 molecules that cannot be used by most phytoplankton, who require nitrogen in its reduced, or “fixed” forms, such as nitrate or ammonium.
Continue reading Ecology of nitrogen fixers in the Pacific Ocean
In this study, Fanny Monteiro, Stephanie Dutkiewicz and Mick Follows, interpret the environmental controls on the global ocean diazotroph biogeography in the context of a three-dimensional global model with a self-organizing phytoplankton community.
Continue reading Biogeographical controls on the marine nitrogen fixers
Iron is an essential nutrient for living things, but is scarce in the ocean. Darwin Project researchers Stephanie Dutkiewisz, Mick Follows and Fanny Monteiro, collaborating with a team from WHOI led by Mak Saito are reporting they have found that a key marine bacterium, Crocosphaera watsonii, may have evolved a remarkable biochemical way to recycle iron for dual metabolic activities. You can read more about this work in the following WHOI News Office release or in Saito et al (2011), a recent paper in PNAS.
Saito, M. A., E . M. Bertrand, S. Dutkiewicz, V. V. Bulygin, D. M. Moran, F. M. Monteiro, M. J. Follows, F. W. Valois, and J. B. Waterbury (2011), Iron conservation by reduction of metalloenzyme inventories in the marine diazotroph Crocosphaera watsonii.
Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1006943108
Monteiro, F., M. J. Follows and S. Dutkiewicz (2010), Distribution of diverse nitrogen fixers in the global ocean, Global Biogeochemical Cycles, 24, GB3017, doi:10.1029/2009GB003731
Monteiro, F. and M. Follows (2009), On the interannual variability of nitrogen fixation in the subtropical gyres, Journal of Marine Research, 67, 1-20, doi: 10.1357/002224009788597944