Long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) are essential nutrients for all marine animals that have previously been studied. Most marine animals obtain long-chain PUFAs from their diets (i.e. as products of photosynthetic processes) and few are known to be able to produce these compounds de novo. Deep-sea vent organisms live in an environment that is relatively isolated from photosynthetic ...

Although there is a great wealth of data supporting the occurrence of simultaneous synthesis and breakdown of storage carbohydrate in many organisms, previous 13CO2 pulse-chase based studies indicated that starch degradation does not operate in illuminated Arabidopsis leaves. Here we show that leaves of gwd, sex4, bam4, bam1/bam3 and amy3/isa3/lda starch breakdown mutants accumulate higher leve...

Isotopic studies of multi-taxa terrestrial vertebrate assemblages allow determination of paleoclimatic and paleoecological aspects on account of the different information supplied by each taxon. The late Campanian-early Maastrichtian "Lo Hueco" Fossil-Lagerstätte (central eastern Spain), located at a subtropical paleolatitude of ~31°N, constitutes an ideal setting to carry out this task due to ...

Variations in the carbon isotope signature of leaf dark-respired CO2 (δ13CR) within a single night is a widely observed phenomenon. However, it is unclear whether there are plant functional type differences with regard to the amplitude of the nighttime variation in δ13CR. These differences, if present, would be important for interpreting the short-term variations in the stable carbon signature ...

Blowouts present a small but genuine risk when drilling into the deep subsurface and can have an immediate and significant impact on the surrounding environment. Nevertheless, studies that document their long-term impact are scarce. In 1965, a catastrophic underground blowout occurred during the drilling of a gas well in The Netherlands, which led to the uncontrolled release of large amounts of...

We investigated trophic ecology variation among colonies as well as sexand age-related differences in the diet of the southern giant petrel Macronectes giganteus, a long-lived seabird that is sexually dimorphic in size. We measured stable isotopes (δ13C, δ15N) in blood samples collected during breeding at Bird Island (South Georgia, Antarctica) in 1998 and at 2 colonies in the Argentinean area ...

Pine wilt disease (PWD) is considered as the most destructive forest-invasive alien species in China. We measured gas exchange parameters and foliar carbon isotope ratios (δ13C) of different infection phases of Masson pine in order to investigate the effect of Bursaphelenchus xylophilus infection on photosynthetic responses and resource-use efficiency. The results showed that net photosynthetic...

Cold-water corals (CWC) are frequently reported from deep sites with locally accelerated currents that enhance seabed food particle supply. Moreover, zooplankton likely account for ecologically important prey items, but their contribution to CWC diet remains unquantified. We investigated the benthic food web structure of the recently discovered Santa Maria di Leuca (SML) CWC province (300 to 11...

The Campanian–Maastrichtian (83–66 Ma) was a period of global climate cooling, featuring significant negative carbon-isotope (δ13C) anomalies, such as the Late Campanian Event (LCE) and the Campanian–Maastrichtian Boundary Event (CMBE). A variety of factors, including changes in temperature, oceanic circulation and gateway opening, have been invoked to explain these δ13C perturbations, but no p...

The changing climate in the Arctic has a profound impact on permafrost coasts, which are subject to intensified thermokarst formation and erosion. Consequently, terrestrial organic matter (OM) is mobilized and transported into the nearshore zone. Yet, little is known about the fate of mobilized OM before and after entering the ocean. In this study we investigated a retrogressive thaw slump (RTS...