在全球变暖和海洋酸化下,预测珊瑚礁的未来

Throughout its ~4.5 billion year history, the Earth has experienced periods of warming and cooling. However, the current drastic increase in global temperatures is well outside of the Earth’s cyclic norms, and evidence for human-caused global climate change is compelling. Paleoclimatology, the study of ancient climate conditions, provides ample evidence for human-caused global climate change by comparing recent conditions with those in the past.

Microorganisms are pivotal agents in Earth's biogeochemical cycles, significantly influencing climate dynamics through their metabolic activities. These microbes modulate the levels of key greenhouse gases by both contributing to and helping mitigate climate change.Microbial Contributions to Greenhouse Gas EmissionsRising global temperatures accelerate microbial metabolism, which, in turn, speeds up the decomposition of organic matter. This process releases carbon dioxide (CO₂) through...

Concrete exposed to seawater can undergo degradation like the dissolution of ettringite and gypsum, increasing the material's porosity and decreasing its strength. In contrast, the crystallization of salts within the concrete's pores can cause expansion, particularly above the waterline where evaporation occurs. Nonetheless, this expansion only happens when seawater, enabled by the concrete's permeability, manages to infiltrate the structure.
Concrete in areas between tide marks, which undergo...

Marine microbial ecosystems are shaped by distinct physicochemical limits, including high salinity, low nutrient availability, and fluctuating oxygen levels. These conditions favor smaller microbial cell sizes, which maximize their surface-to-volume ratio for efficient nutrient uptake.Microbial activity and community composition are closely linked to biogeochemical cycles, particularly in dynamic environments like estuaries, where halotolerant microbes thrive in response to variable salinity...

The deep ocean and its underlying sediments represent vast, largely unexplored microbial habitats that extend far beyond the sunlit photic zone. The photic (euphotic) zone typically spans the upper ~100–200 meters of pelagic waters in the open ocean, but its depth varies geographically and seasonally, where sufficient light supports photosynthetic life. Below this lies the deep sea, spanning roughly 1000–6000 meters (bathypelagic to abyssal zones), with deeper hadal trenches extending beyond...

The kingdom Archaeplastida encompasses red and green algae, along with land plants. Unlike other protists with chloroplasts that arose through secondary endosymbiosis, only red and green algae originated from primary endosymbiotic events. This diverse group of eukaryotic organisms contains chlorophyll and performs oxygenic photosynthesis.Algae exist in various forms, from large brown kelp in coastal waters to green scum in puddles and stains on rocks or soil. Some species are responsible for...