An often-overlooked source of marine renewable energy is the energy available from salinity gradients. The potential resource for the osmotic pairing of fresh water and seawater is estimated at 2.6 TW. Several concepts have been proposed. Obviously, any scheme to desalinate seawater can be operated in reverse. Recent developments in pressureretarded osmosis, vapor compression, reverse dialysis ...

Large amounts of low-grade waste heat (temperatures <130 °C) are released during many industrial, geothermal, and solar-based processes. Using thermally-regenerative ammonia solutions, low-grade thermal energy can be converted to electricity in battery systems. To improve reactor efficiency, a compact, ammonia-based flow battery (AFB) was developed and tested at different solution concentration...

Climate change-induced salinity decrease is currently occurring in many estuarine coastal zones, due to increased outflow of freshwater. This freshening can be a problem for brackish-water animals, already living on the edge their tolerance. We measured oxygen consumption common copepod Eurytemora affinis along natural gradient western Gulf Finland. The varied between 3 inner bay and 7 offshore...

Bacterial community composition and functional potential change subtly across gradients in the surface ocean. In contrast, while there are significant phylogenetic divergences between communities from freshwater and marine habitats, the underlying mechanisms to this phylogenetic structuring yet remain unknown. We hypothesized that the functional potential of natural bacterial communities is lin...

It is widely accepted that biodiversity is lower in more extreme environments. In this study, we sought to determine whether this trend, well documented for macroorganisms, also holds at the microbial level for bacteria. We used denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis (DGGE) with phylum-specific primers to quantify the taxon richness (i.e., the DGGE band numbers) of the bacterioplankton communi...

Despite potential evaporation rates in excess of the local precipitation, dry climates often support saline lakes through groundwater inputs of water and associated solutes. These groundwater-fed lakes are important indicators of environmental change, in part because their shallow water levels and salinity are very sensitive to weather and climatic variability. Some of this sensitivity arises f...

Marine elasmobranchs maintain internal osmolality higher than their external environment, resulting in an osmotic gradient for branchial water uptake. This gradient is markedly increased in low-salinity habitats. The subsequent increase in water uptake presents a challenge to volume homeostasis. The Atlantic stingray is a marine elasmobranch that inhabits a remarkable range of environmental sal...