The macroecological contribution to global change solutions

Anthropogenic global changes threaten species and the ecosystem services upon which society depends. Effective solutions to this multifaceted crisis need scientific responses spanning disciplines and spatial scales. Macroecology develops broad-scale predictions of species' distributions and abundances, complementing the frequently local focus of global change biology. Macroecological discoveries rely particularly on correlative methods but have still proven effective in predicting global change impacts on species. However, global changes create pseudo-experimental opportunities to build stronger, mechanistic theories in macroecology that successfully predict multiple phenomena across spatial scales. Such macroecological perspectives will help address the biotic consequences of global change.     

Carbonyl sulfide: potential agent of atmospheric sulfur corrosion

Laboratory exposure experiments demonstrate that carbonyl sulfide in wet air corrodes copper at 22 degrees C at a rate that is approximately linear with total exposure (the product of exposure time and carbonyl sulfide concentration). The corrosion rate is similar to that of hydrogen sulfide, a widely recognized corrodant. The much greater average atmospheric abundance of carbonyl sulfide compared with that of hydrogen sulfide or sulfur dioxide suggests that carbonyl sulfide may be a major agent of atmospheric sulfur corrosion.     

Sulfate burial constraints on the Phanerozoic sulfur cycle

The sulfur cycle influences the respiration of sedimentary organic matter, the oxidation state of the atmosphere and oceans, and the composition of seawater. However, the factors governing the major sulfur fluxes between seawater and sedimentary reservoirs remain incompletely understood. Using macrostratigraphic data, we quantified sulfate evaporite burial fluxes through Phanerozoic time. Approximately half of the modern riverine sulfate flux comes from weathering of recently deposited evaporites. Rates of sulfate burial are unsteady and linked to changes in the area of marine environments suitable for evaporite formation and preservation. By contrast, rates of pyrite burial and weathering are higher, less variable, and largely balanced, highlighting a greater role of the sulfur cycle in regulating atmospheric oxygen.     

Atmospheric influence of Earth's earliest sulfur cycle

Mass-independent isotopic signatures for delta(33)S, delta(34)S, and delta(36)S from sulfide and sulfate in Precambrian rocks indicate that a change occurred in the sulfur cycle between 2090 and 2450 million years ago (Ma). Before 2450 Ma, the cycle was influenced by gas-phase atmospheric reactions. These atmospheric reactions also played a role in determining the oxidation state of sulfur, implying that atmospheric oxygen partial pressures were low and that the roles of oxidative weathering and of microbial oxidation and reduction of sulfur were minimal. Atmospheric fractionation processes should be considered in the use of sulfur isotopes to study the onset and consequences of microbial fractionation processes in Earth's early history.     

Tropical forests and the global carbon cycle

New data on the three major determinants of the carbon release from tropical forest clearing are used in a computer model that simulates land use change and its effects on the carbon content of vegetation and soil in order to calculate the net flux of carbon dioxide between tropical ecosystems and the atmosphere. The model also permits testing the sensitivity of the calculated flux to uncertainties in these data. The tropics were a net source of at least 0.4 x 10(15) grams but not more than 1.6 x 10(15) grams of carbon in 1980, considerably less than previous estimates. Decreases in soil organic matter were responsible for 0.1 x 10(15) to 0.3 x 10(15) grams of the release, while the burning and decay of cleared vegetation accounted for 0.3 x 10(15) to 1.3 x 10(15) grams. These estimates are lower than many previous ones because lower biomass estimates and slightly lower land clearing rates were used and because ecosystem recovery processes were included. These new estimates of the biotic release allow for the possibility of a balanced global budget given the large remaining uncertainties in the marine, terrestrial, and fossil fuel components of the carbon cycle.     

A thiosulfate shunt in the sulfur cycle of marine sediments

The oxidation of sulfide, generated by bacterial sulfate reduction, is a key process in the biogeochemistry of marine sediments, yet the pathways and oxidants are poorly known. By the use of (35)S-tracer studies of the S cycle in marine and freshwater sediments, a novel shunt function of thiosulfate (S(2)O(3)(2-)) was identified. The S(2)O(3)(2-) constituted 68 to 78 percent of the immediate HS(-)-oxidation products and was concurrently (i) reduced back to HS(-), (ii) oxidized to SO(4)(2-), and (iii) disproportionated to HS(-) + SO(4)(2-). The small thiosulfate pool is thus involved in a dynamic HS(-) - S(2)O(3)(2-) cycle in anoxic sediments. The disproportionation of thiosulfate may help account for the large difference in isotopic composition ((34)S/(32)S) of sulfate and sulfides in sediments and sedimentary rocks.     

X-ray Structure of a self-compartmentalizing sulfur cycle metalloenzyme

Numerous microorganisms oxidize sulfur for energy conservation and contribute to the global biogeochemical sulfur cycle. We have determined the 1.7 angstrom-resolution structure of the sulfur oxygenase reductase from the thermoacidophilic archaeon Acidianus ambivalens, which catalyzes an oxygen-dependent disproportionation of elemental sulfur. Twenty-four monomers form a large hollow sphere enclosing a positively charged nanocompartment. Apolar channels provide access for linear sulfur species. A cysteine persulfide and a low-potential mononuclear non-heme iron site ligated by a 2-His-1-carboxylate facial triad in a pocket of each subunit constitute the active sites, accessible from the inside of the sphere. The iron is likely the site of both sulfur oxidation and sulfur reduction.     

The Archean sulfur cycle and the early history of atmospheric oxygen

The isotope record of sedimentary sulfides can help resolve the history of oxygen accumulation into the atmosphere. We measured sulfur isotopic fractionation during microbial sulfate reduction up to 88 degrees C and show how sulfate reduction rate influences the preservation of biological fractionations in sediments. The sedimentary sulfur isotope record suggests low concentrations of seawater sulfate and atmospheric oxygen in the early Archean (3.4 to 2.8 billion years ago). The accumulation of oxygen and sulfate began later, in the early Proterozoic (2.5 to 0.54 billion years ago).     

A cryptic sulfur cycle in oxygen-minimum-zone waters off the Chilean coast

Nitrogen cycling is normally thought to dominate the biogeochemistry and microbial ecology of oxygen-minimum zones in marine environments. Through a combination of molecular techniques and process rate measurements, we showed that both sulfate reduction and sulfide oxidation contribute to energy flux and elemental cycling in oxygen-free waters off the coast of northern Chile. These processes may have been overlooked because in nature, the sulfide produced by sulfate reduction immediately oxidizes back to sulfate. This cryptic sulfur cycle is linked to anammox and other nitrogen cycling processes, suggesting that it may influence biogeochemical cycling in the global ocean.     

Ocean salinities reveal strong global water cycle intensification during 1950 to 2000

Fundamental thermodynamics and climate models suggest that dry regions will become drier and wet regions will become wetter in response to warming. Efforts to detect this long-term response in sparse surface observations of rainfall and evaporation remain ambiguous. We show that ocean salinity patterns express an identifiable fingerprint of an intensifying water cycle. Our 50-year observed global surface salinity changes, combined with changes from global climate models, present robust evidence of an intensified global water cycle at a rate of 8 ± 5% per degree of surface warming. This rate is double the response projected by current-generation climate models and suggests that a substantial (16 to 24%) intensification of the global water cycle will occur in a future 2° to 3° warmer world.     

Dimethyl sulfide in the surface ocean and the marine atmosphere: a global view

Dimethyl sulfide (DMS) has been identified as the major volatile sulfur compound in 628 samples of surface seawater representing most of the major oceanic ecozones. In at least three respects, its vertical distribution, its local patchiness, and its distribution in oceanic ecozones, the concentration of DMS in the sea exhibits a pattern similar to that of primary production. The global weightedaverage concentration of DMS in surface seawater is 102 nanograms of sulfur (DMS) per liter, corresponding to a global sea-to-air flux of 39 x 10(12) grams of sulfur per year. When the biogenic sulfur contributions from the land surface are added, the biogenic sulfur gas flux is approximately equal to the anthropogenic flux of sulfur dioxide. The DMS concentration in air over the equatorial Pacific varies diurnally between 120 and 200 nanograms of sulfur (DMS) per cubic meter, in agreement with the predictions of photochemical models. The estimated source flux of DMS from the oceans to the marine atmosphere is in agreement with independently obtained estimates of the removal fluxes of DMS and its oxidation products from the atmosphere.     

Oxygen isotope constraints on the sulfur cycle over the past 10 million years

Oxygen isotopes in marine sulfate (delta18O(SO4)) measured in marine barite show variability over the past 10 million years, including a 5 per mil decrease during the Plio-Pleistocene, with near-constant values during the Miocene that are slightly enriched over the modern ocean. A numerical model suggests that sea level fluctuations during Plio-Pleistocene glacial cycles affected the sulfur cycle by reducing the area of continental shelves and increasing the oxidative weathering of pyrite. The data also require that sulfate concentrations were 10 to 20% lower in the late Miocene than today.     

The impact of agricultural soil erosion on the global carbon cycle

Agricultural soil erosion is thought to perturb the global carbon cycle, but estimates of its effect range from a source of 1 petagram per year(-1) to a sink of the same magnitude. By using caesium-137 and carbon inventory measurements from a large-scale survey, we found consistent evidence for an erosion-induced sink of atmospheric carbon equivalent to approximately 26% of the carbon transported by erosion. Based on this relationship, we estimated a global carbon sink of 0.12 (range 0.06 to 0.27) petagrams of carbon per year(-1) resulting from erosion in the world's agricultural landscapes. Our analysis directly challenges the view that agricultural erosion represents an important source or sink for atmospheric CO2.     

飞机人工增雨作业影响面积估算方法

在总结前人的经验的基础上,提出抛物线理论评估飞机人工增雨的方法,重点分析了云内微物理特征、高空风场、湍流扩散等方面的影响,分析了催化因子的湍流扩散方面在经验系数中所占的比重,根据飞机人工增雨的一些变量设计了对人工增雨影响效果评估的方法,编写了相应的影响面积评估程序,并对2013年3月25日河南省飞机增雨的实例进行了计算,对飞机人工增雨影响面积进行了估算。结果表明,总结前人所做的工作后,提出飞机人工增雨影响面积的一种新的研究方法,即用VB语言编写程序处理每次飞行的资料,读取飞机作业时不同点的气象资料,另外根据催化剂性质、环境因素、云内微物理特征、雷达回波参数等数据,确定经验系数;依据程序算法,最后估算出每次飞机作业的影响面积。     

全球变化研究热点——碳循环

40多年来,全世界的科研工作者已经在碳循环领域的各个方面做了大量的工作.本文总结了全球碳循环研究的最新进展,着重介绍了大气CO2浓度的变化及增长趋势,陆地生态系统和海洋对于大气CO2浓度变化及由此而引起的气候变化的反馈及其研究现状.同时,对许多固碳措施和技术方法也作了阐述.目前全球碳循环研究已经达到了系统集成的高度,因此集成研究将是21世纪碳循环研究的发展趋势.