The Salford Nature Environments Database (SNED): an open-access database of standardized high-quality pictures from natural environments.

The growing interest in harnessing natural environments to enhance mental health, including cognitive functioning and mood, has yielded encouraging results in initial studies. Given that images of nature have demonstrated similar benefits, they are frequently employed as proxies for real-world environments. To ensure precision and control, researchers often manipulate images of natural environments.

Moving from features to functions: Bridging disciplinary understandings of urban environments to support healthy people and ecosystems.

Contact with nature can contribute to health and wellbeing, but knowledge gaps persist regarding the environmental characteristics that promote these benefits. Understanding and maximising these benefits is particularly important in urban areas, where opportunities for such contact is limited. At the same time, we are facing climate and ecological crises which require policy and practice to support ecosystem functioning.

Macroalgal deep genomics illuminate multiple paths to aquatic, photosynthetic multicellularity.

Macroalgae are multicellular, aquatic autotrophs that play vital roles in global climate maintenance and have diverse applications in biotechnology and eco-engineering, which are directly linked to their multicellularity phenotypes. However, their genomic diversity and the evolutionary mechanisms underlying multicellularity in these organisms remain uncharacterized. In this study, we sequenced 110 macroalgal genomes from diverse climates and phyla, and identified key genomic features that distinguish them from their microalgal relatives.

Phytoplankton optical fingerprint libraries for development of phytoplankton ocean color satellite products.

Phytoplankton respond to physical and hydrographic forcing on time and space scales up to and including those relevant to climate change. Quantifying changes in phytoplankton communities over these scales is essential for predicting ocean food resources, occurrences of harmful algal blooms, and carbon and other elemental cycles, among other predictions. However, one of the best tools for quantifying phytoplankton communities across relevant time and space scales, ocean color sensors, is constrained by its own spectral capabilities and availability of adequately vetted and relevant optical models.

Long-term oscillations in the normalized biomass-size spectrum reveal the impact of oligotrophication on zooplankton trophic structure in the North Atlantic Subtropical Gyre.

Ocean warming of the North Atlantic Subtropical Gyre (NASG) induced oligotrophication and a decrease in integrated net primary production during the 2010s, potentially affecting higher trophic levels. We analyzed long-term records (1994-2019) of daytime and nighttime zooplankton biomass in five size classes from the NASG. Daytime biomass decreased in the three largest size classes during the 2010s, while decrease in nighttime biomass was less evident due to the relative stability in diel vertical migrator biomass.

Whales in the carbon cycle: can recovery remove carbon dioxide?

The great whales (baleen and sperm whales), through their massive size and wide distribution, influence ecosystem and carbon dynamics. Whales directly store carbon in their biomass and contribute to carbon export through sinking carcasses. Whale excreta may stimulate phytoplankton growth and capture atmospheric CO; such indirect pathways represent the greatest potential for whale-carbon sequestration but are poorly understood.

Global Ocean Particulate Organic Phosphorus, Carbon, Oxygen for Respiration, and Nitrogen (GO-POPCORN).

Concentrations and elemental stoichiometry of suspended particulate organic carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus, and oxygen demand for respiration (C:N:P:-O) play a vital role in characterizing and quantifying marine elemental cycles. Here, we present Version 2 of the Global Ocean Particulate Organic Phosphorus, Carbon, Oxygen for Respiration, and Nitrogen (GO-POPCORN) dataset. Version 1 is a previously published dataset of particulate organic matter from 70 different studies between 1971 and 2010, while Version 2 is comprised of data collected from recent cruises between 2011 and 2020.

Impact of Growth Phase, Pigment Adaptation, and Climate Change Conditions on the Cellular Pigment and Carbon Content of Fifty-One Phytoplankton Isolates.

Owing to their importance in aquatic ecosystems, the demand for models that estimate phytoplankton biomass and community composition in the global ocean has increased over the last decade. Moreover, the impacts of climate change, including elevated carbon dioxide (CO ), increased stratification, and warmer sea surface temperatures, will likely shape phytoplankton community composition in the global ocean. Chemotaxonomic methods are useful for modeling phytoplankton community composition from marker pigments normalized to chlorophyll a (Chl a).

Adaptive carbon export response to warming in the Sargasso Sea.

Ocean ecosystem models predict that warming and increased surface ocean stratification will trigger a series of ecosystem events, reducing the biological export of particulate carbon to the ocean interior. We present a nearly three-decade time series from the open ocean that documents a biological response to ocean warming and nutrient reductions wherein particulate carbon export is maintained, counter to expectations. Carbon export is maintained through a combination of phytoplankton community change to favor cyanobacteria with high cellular carbon-to-phosphorus ratios and enhanced shallow phosphorus recycling leading to increased nutrient use efficiency.

Experiences of place attachment and mental wellbeing in the context of urban regeneration.

Urban regeneration is an important policy focus across the European Union, with initiatives seeking to address inequalities in public health. Although theoretically such initiatives should produce benefits for mental wellbeing, this lacks strong supporting evidence. The current research addressed a prior overreliance on quantitative methods and underappreciation of the psychological significance of place, through the adoption of qualitative interviews with residents, as part of an independent review of a £650m regeneration project.

Large-scale genome sequencing reveals the driving forces of viruses in microalgal evolution.

Being integral primary producers in diverse ecosystems, microalgal genomes could be mined for ecological insights, but representative genome sequences are lacking for many phyla. We cultured and sequenced 107 microalgae species from 11 different phyla indigenous to varied geographies and climates. This collection was used to resolve genomic differences between saltwater and freshwater microalgae.

Radiometric approach for the detection of picophytoplankton assemblages across oceanic fronts.

Cell abundances of Prochlorococcus, Synechococcus, and autotrophic picoeukaryotes were estimated in surface waters using principal component analysis (PCA) of hyperspectral and multispectral remote-sensing reflectance data. This involved the development of models that employed multilinear correlations between cell abundances across the Atlantic Ocean and a combination of PCA scores and sea surface temperatures. The models retrieve high Prochlorococcus abundances in the Equatorial Convergence Zone and show their numerical dominance in oceanic gyres, with decreases in Prochlorococcus abundances towards temperate waters where Synechococcus flourishes, and an emergence of picoeukaryotes in temperate waters.

Linking regional shifts in microbial genome adaptation with surface ocean biogeochemistry.

Linking 'omics measurements with biogeochemical cycles is a widespread challenge in microbial community ecology. Here, we propose applying genomic adaptation as 'biosensors' for microbial investments to overcome nutrient stress. We then integrate this genomic information with a trait-based model to predict regional shifts in the elemental composition of marine plankton communities.

Machine learning identifies a strong association between warming and reduced primary productivity in an oligotrophic ocean gyre.

Phytoplankton play key roles in the oceans by regulating global biogeochemical cycles and production in marine food webs. Global warming is thought to affect phytoplankton production both directly, by impacting their photosynthetic metabolism, and indirectly by modifying the physical environment in which they grow. In this respect, the Bermuda Atlantic Time-series Study (BATS) in the Sargasso Sea (North Atlantic gyre) provides a unique opportunity to explore effects of warming on phytoplankton production across the vast oligotrophic ocean regions because it is one of the few multidecadal records of measured net primary productivity (NPP).

Biogeochemical controls of surface ocean phosphate.

Surface ocean phosphate is commonly below the standard analytical detection limits, leading to an incomplete picture of the global variation and biogeochemical role of phosphate. A global compilation of phosphate measured using high-sensitivity methods revealed several previously unrecognized low-phosphate areas and clear regional differences. Both observational climatologies and Earth system models (ESMs) systematically overestimated surface phosphate.

Putative sponge biomarkers in unicellular Rhizaria question an early rise of animals.

The dawn of animals remains one of the most mysterious milestones in the evolution of life. The fossil lipids 24-isopropylcholestane and 26-methylstigmastane are considered diagnostic for demosponges-arguably the oldest group of living animals. The widespread occurrence and high relative abundance of these biomarkers in Ediacaran sediments from 635-541 million years (Myr) ago have been viewed as evidence for the rise of animals to ecological importance approximately 100 Myr before their rapid Cambrian radiation.

Nutrient supply controls particulate elemental concentrations and ratios in the low latitude eastern Indian Ocean.

Variation in ocean C:N:P of particulate organic matter (POM) has led to competing hypotheses for the underlying drivers. Each hypothesis predicts C:N:P equally well due to regional co-variance in environmental conditions and biodiversity. The Indian Ocean offers a unique positive temperature and nutrient supply relationship to test these hypotheses.

Parallel phylogeography of Prochlorococcus and Synechococcus.

The globally abundant marine Cyanobacteria Prochlorococcus and Synechococcus share many physiological traits but presumably have different evolutionary histories and associated phylogeography. In Prochlorococcus, there is a clear phylogenetic hierarchy of ecotypes, whereas multiple Synechococcus clades have overlapping physiologies and environmental distributions. However, microbial traits are associated with different phylogenetic depths.

High Variability in Cellular Stoichiometry of Carbon, Nitrogen, and Phosphorus Within Classes of Marine Eukaryotic Phytoplankton Under Sufficient Nutrient Conditions.

Current hypotheses suggest that cellular elemental stoichiometry of marine eukaryotic phytoplankton such as the ratios of cellular carbon:nitrogen:phosphorus (C:N:P) vary between phylogenetic groups. To investigate how phylogenetic structure, cell volume, growth rate, and temperature interact to affect the cellular elemental stoichiometry of marine eukaryotic phytoplankton, we examined the C:N:P composition in 30 isolates across 7 classes of marine phytoplankton that were grown with a sufficient supply of nutrients and nitrate as the nitrogen source. The isolates covered a wide range in cell volume (5 orders of magnitude), growth rate (<0.

Ambient nitrate switches the ammonium consumption pathway in the euphotic ocean.

Phytoplankton assimilation and microbial oxidation of ammonium are two critical conversion pathways in the marine nitrogen cycle. The underlying regulatory mechanisms of these two competing processes remain unclear. Here we show that ambient nitrate acts as a key variable to bifurcate ammonium flow through assimilation or oxidation, and the depth of the nitracline represents a robust spatial boundary between ammonium assimilators and oxidizers in the stratified ocean.

The U.S. Culture Collection Network Responding to the Requirements of the Nagoya Protocol on Access and Benefit Sharing.

The U.S. Culture Collection Network held a meeting to share information about how culture collections are responding to the requirements of the recently enacted Nagoya Protocol on Access to Genetic Resources and the Fair and Equitable Sharing of Benefits Arising from their Utilization to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD).

Stoichiometry of Prochlorococcus, Synechococcus, and small eukaryotic populations in the western North Atlantic Ocean.

In the North Atlantic Ocean, we found that natural populations of Prochlorococcus adhered to Redfield ratio dimensions when comparing cell quotas of carbon to nitrogen, but had flexible composition under nutrient and light stress, allowing for a broad range of cellular carbon- and nitrogen-to-phosphorus ratios. Synechococcus populations also exhibited a wide range of elemental stoichiometry, including carbon-to-nitrogen ratios and increased their carbon-to-phosphorus ratios in response to low dissolved phosphorus availability. Small eukaryotic populations tended to have lower carbon-to-phosphorus ratios than single cell cyanobacterial groups, with the exception of one group of samples, which highlights the importance of community composition when determining how biological diversity influences bulk particle stoichiometry.

Growth on ATP Elicits a P-Stress Response in the Picoeukaryote Micromonas pusilla.

The surface waters of oligotrophic oceans have chronically low phosphate (Pi) concentrations, which renders dissolved organic phosphorus (DOP) an important nutrient source. In the subtropical North Atlantic, cyanobacteria are often numerically dominant, but picoeukaryotes can dominate autotrophic biomass and productivity making them important contributors to the ocean carbon cycle. Despite their importance, little is known regarding the metabolic response of picoeukaryotes to changes in phosphorus (P) source and availability.