Engel Anja

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Engel
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Anja
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  • Article
    Soothsaying DOM: A current perspective on the future of oceanic dissolved organic carbon
    (Frontiers Media, 2020-05-25) Wagner, Sasha ; Schubotz, Florence ; Kaiser, Karl ; Hallmann, Christian ; Waska, Hannelore ; Rossel, Pamela ; Hansman, Roberta L. ; Elvert, Marcus ; Middelburg, Jack J. ; Engel, Anja ; Blattmann, Thomas M. ; Catalá, Teresa S. ; Lennartz, Sinikka T. ; Gomez-Saez, Gonzalo V. ; Pantoja-Gutiérrez, Silvio ; Bao, Rui ; Galy, Valier
    The vast majority of freshly produced oceanic dissolved organic carbon (DOC) is derived from marine phytoplankton, then rapidly recycled by heterotrophic microbes. A small fraction of this DOC survives long enough to be routed to the interior ocean, which houses the largest and oldest DOC reservoir. DOC reactivity depends upon its intrinsic chemical composition and extrinsic environmental conditions. Therefore, recalcitrance is an emergent property of DOC that is analytically difficult to constrain. New isotopic techniques that track the flow of carbon through individual organic molecules show promise in unveiling specific biosynthetic or degradation pathways that control the metabolic turnover of DOC and its accumulation in the deep ocean. However, a multivariate approach is required to constrain current carbon fluxes so that we may better predict how the cycling of oceanic DOC will be altered with continued climate change. Ocean warming, acidification, and oxygen depletion may upset the balance between the primary production and heterotrophic reworking of DOC, thus modifying the amount and/or composition of recalcitrant DOC. Climate change and anthropogenic activities may enhance mobilization of terrestrial DOC and/or stimulate DOC production in coastal waters, but it is unclear how this would affect the flux of DOC to the open ocean. Here, we assess current knowledge on the oceanic DOC cycle and identify research gaps that must be addressed to successfully implement its use in global scale carbon models.
  • Article
    Persistent equatorial Pacific iron limitation under ENSO forcing
    (Nature Research, 2023-08-16) Browning, Thomas J. ; Saito, Mak A. ; Garaba, Shungudzemwoyo P. ; Wang, Xuechao ; Achterberg, Eric P. ; Moore, C. Mark ; Engel, Anja ; Mcllvin, Matthew R. ; Moran, Dawn ; Voss, Daniela ; Zielinski, Oliver ; Tagliabue, Alessandro
    Projected responses of ocean net primary productivity to climate change are highly uncertain1. Models suggest that the climate sensitivity of phytoplankton nutrient limitation in the low-latitude Pacific Ocean plays a crucial role1,2,3, but this is poorly constrained by observations4. Here we show that changes in physical forcing drove coherent fluctuations in the strength of equatorial Pacific iron limitation through multiple El Niño/Southern Oscillation (ENSO) cycles, but that this was overestimated twofold by a state-of-the-art climate model. Our assessment was enabled by first using a combination of field nutrient-addition experiments, proteomics and above-water hyperspectral radiometry to show that phytoplankton physiological responses to iron limitation led to approximately threefold changes in chlorophyll-normalized phytoplankton fluorescence. We then exploited the >18-year satellite fluorescence record to quantify climate-induced nutrient limitation variability. Such synoptic constraints provide a powerful approach for benchmarking the realism of model projections of net primary productivity to climate changes.