geochemistry

Story behind the paper: The enigmatic persistence of dissolved organic matter in the oceans

Why complex systems theory might help to better understand one of the most mysterious carbon pools in the earth system

Emergent Diversity and Persistent Turnover in Evolving Microbial Cross-Feeding Networks

A distinguishing feature of many ecological networks in the microbial realm is the diversity of substrates that could potentially serve as energy sources for microbial consumers. The microorganisms are themselves the agents of compound …

Enigmatic persistence of dissolved organic matter in the oceans

Marine dissolved organic matter (DOM) contains more carbon than the combined stocks of Earth’s biota. Organisms in the ocean continuously release a myriad of molecules that become food for microheterotrophs, but, for unknown reasons, a residual …

Microbial physiology governs the oceanic distribution of dissolved organic carbon in a scenario of equal degradability

Dissolved organic carbon (DOC) forms one of the largest active organic carbon reservoirs on Earth and reaches average radiocarbon ages of several thousand years. Many previous large scale DOC models assume different lability classes (labile to …

Marine Microbiome

Complex systems theory of dissolved organic matter

Movement Ecology

Linking magnetic and other orientation cues to global migration patterns

Long-term stability of marine dissolved organic carbon emerges from a neutral network of compounds and microbes

Dissolved organic carbon (DOC) is the main energy source for marine heterotrophic microorganisms, but a small fraction of DOC resists microbial degradation and accumulates in the ocean. The reason behind this recalcitrance is unknown. We test whether the long-term stability of DOC requires the existence of structurally refractory molecules, using a mechanistic model comprising a diverse network of microbe-substrate interactions...

Functional molecular diversity of marine dissolved organic matter is reduced during degradation

Dissolved organic matter (DOM) is a highly diverse mixture of compounds, accounting for one of the world's largest active carbon pools. The surprising recalcitrance of some DOM compounds to bacterial degradation has recently been associated with its …