21st-century rise in anthropogenic nitrogen deposition on a remote coral reef

Haojia Ren, Yi-Chi Chen, Xingchen T. Wang, George T F Wong, Anne L. Cohen, Thomas M. DeCarlo, Mira A. Weigand, Horng-Sheng Mii, Daniel M. Sigman

    Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

    115 Citations (Scopus)

    Abstract

    Nitrogen is an essential nutrient for phytoplankton growth. Nitrogen is primarily supplied to the surface ocean by mixing from below. However, as fertilizer use and combustion of fossil fuels rise, the atmosphere is expected to become an increasingly important source. Ren et al. measured nitrogen isotopes in organic matter from a South China Sea coral (see the Perspective by Boyle). Their findings suggest that atmospheric deposition of anthropogenic nitrogen began right at the end of the 20th century. This pathway now supplies nearly one quarter of the annual nitrogen input to the surface ocean in this region.Science, this issue p. 749; see also p. 700With the rapid rise in pollution-associated nitrogen inputs to the western Pacific, it has been suggested that even the open ocean has been affected. In a coral core from Dongsha Atoll, a remote coral reef ecosystem, we observe a decline in the 15N/14N of coral skeletontextendashbound organic matter, which signals increased deposition of anthropogenic atmospheric N on the open ocean and its incorporation into plankton and, in turn, the atoll corals. The first clear change occurred just before 2000 CE, decades later than predicted by other work. The amplitude of change suggests that, by 2010, anthropogenic atmospheric N deposition represented 20 textpm 5% of the annual N input to the surface ocean in this region, which appears to be at the lower end of other estimates.
    Original languageEnglish
    Pages (from-to)749-752
    Number of pages4
    JournalScience
    Volume356
    Issue number6339
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - 19 May 2017

    Fingerprint

    Dive into the research topics of '21st-century rise in anthropogenic nitrogen deposition on a remote coral reef'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

    Cite this