The ability of biogeochemical ecosystem models to represent agro-ecosystems depends on their correct integration with field observations. We report simultaneous calibration of 67 DayCent model parameters using multiple observation types through inverse modeling using the PEST parameter estimation software. Parameter estimation reduced the total sum of weighted squared residuals by 56% and impro...

Processes that occur at mesoscale and submesoscale features such as eddies and fronts are important for marine ecosystem dynamics and biogeochemical fluxes. However, their impacts on the fate of biogenic organic carbon in coastal oceans are not well quantified because physical and biological interactions at such features are very complex with short timeand small spatial scales variability. As p...

Nutrient cycling is a key process linking organisms in ecosystems. This is especially apparent in stream environments in which nutrients are taken up readily and cycled through the system in a downstream trajectory. Ecological stoichiometry predicts that biogeochemical cycles of different elements are interdependent because the organisms that drive these cycles require fixed ratios of nutrients...

© The Ecological Society of America www.frontiersinecology.org I an era of extensive environmental change, human activity – particularly the harvest of resources for food, fiber, and fuel – is substantially altering Earth’s climate and its element cycles (Vitousek et al. 1997; Figure 1). The need for energy to support economic growth has increased atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) concentrations...

In biogeochemical models coupled to ocean circulation models, vertical mixing is an important physical process which governs the nutrient supply and the plankton residence in the euphotic layer. However, vertical mixing is often poorly represented in numerical simulations because of approximate parameterizations of sub-grid scale turbulence, wind forcing errors and other mis-represented process...

The biogeochemical cycling in oxygen-minimum zones (OMZs) is dominated by the interactions of microbial nitrogen transformations and, as recently observed in the Chilean upwelling system, also through the energetically less favorable remineralization of sulfate reduction. The latter process is masked, however, by rapid sulfide oxidation, most likely through nitrate reduction. Thus, the cryptic ...

Physical properties of sediments are commonly used to define subsurface lithofacies and these same physical properties influence subsurface microbial communities. This suggests an (unexploited) opportunity to use the spatial distribution of facies to predict spatial variation in biogeochemically relevant microbial attributes. Here, we characterize three biogeochemical facies-oxidized, reduced, ...

Small-scale experiments and theory suggest that ecological functions provided by communities become more stable with increased species richness. Whether these patterns manifest at regional spatial scales and within species-rich communities (e.g., coral reefs) is largely unknown. We quantified five biogeochemical processes, and an aggregate measure of multifunctionality, in species-rich coastal ...

To understand the role of ubiquitous phototrophic periphyton in aquatic ecosystem on the biogeochemical cycling of organic phosphorus, the conversion and removal kinetic characteristics of organic phosphorus (Porg) such as adenosine triphosphate (ATP) were investigated in the presence of the periphyton cultured in artificial non-point source wastewater. The preliminary results showed that the p...