Publications by authors named "Emma L Cavan"

Article Synopsis
  • The biological carbon pump (BCP) in the Southern Ocean relies on phytoplankton productivity and is a key organic matter sink, but the impact of bacteria and archaea on its efficiency is not well understood.
  • Researchers analyzed metagenomes from marine particles to explore this relationship, finding that bacteria associated with sinking particles had more genes for degrading complex organic carbon than those in suspended particles.
  • The study reveals how prokaryotes contribute to the cycling of carbon and nitrogen, highlighting their crucial role in the BCP and the overall organic matter export in the Southern Ocean.
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Marine ecosystems and their associated biodiversity sustain life on Earth and hold intrinsic value. Critical marine ecosystem services include maintenance of global oxygen and carbon cycles, production of food and energy, and sustenance of human wellbeing. However marine ecosystems are swiftly being degraded due to the unsustainable use of marine environments and a rapidly changing climate.

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Plankton drive a major sink of carbon across the global oceans. Dead plankton, their faeces and the faeces of plankton feeders, form a huge rain of carbon sinking to the seabed and deep ocean, reducing atmospheric CO levels and thus helping to regulate the climate. Any change in plankton communities, ecosystems or habitats will perturb this carbon sink, potentially increasing atmospheric CO .

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Detritivores need to upgrade their food to increase its nutritional value. One method is to fragment detritus promoting the colonization of nutrient-rich microbes, which consumers then ingest along with the detritus; so-called microbial gardening. Observations and numerical models of the detritus-dominated ocean mesopelagic zone have suggested microbial gardening by zooplankton is a fundamental process in the ocean carbon cycle leading to increased respiration of carbon-rich detritus.

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