Tag Archives: Omta

2015-10-03 16.00.40

When Phytoplankton Go Hungry

by Helen Hill for MIT CBIOMES

The Redfield ratio, the atomic ratio of carbon, nitrogen, and phosphorus (C:N:P) in phytoplankton and deep ocean waters, has often been treated as a constant 106:16:1. A new paper involving several CBIOMES co-authors, among them two from the MIT Darwin Group, presents compelling evidence for what causes this ratio to change within phytoplankton. Continue reading When Phytoplankton Go Hungry

On the potential role of marine calcifiers in glacial-interglacial dynamics

Ice-core measurements reveal a highly asymmetric cycle in Antarctic temperature and atmospheric CO2 over the last 800,000 years. Both CO2 and temperature decrease over 100,000 years going into a glacial period, then rise steeply over less than 10,000 years at the end of a glacial. There does not yet exist wide agreement about the causes of this cycle or about the origin of its shape. In this article, recently accepted in the journal Global Biogeochemical Cycles, Darwin researchers Anne Willem Omta, Mick Follows and co-authors, explore the possibility that an ecologically driven oscillator may play a role in the dynamics.

Continue reading On the potential role of marine calcifiers in glacial-interglacial dynamics