phosphorus – Shamskm: A site to exchange knowledge and solutions

Revealing the Ocean’s Hidden Fertilizer

By Guest PostAugust 21, 2015Environmentacrylic nails, barbados, bedingungsloses grundeinkommen, bermuda, essential nutrient, extracurricular activities, home learning courses, ocean, phosphorus, sonya dyhrman, whoi, zapfen

Marine Plants Play Major Role in Phosphorus Cycling

Phosphorus is one of the most common substances on Earth. An essential nutrient for every living organism—humans require approximately 700 milligrams per day—we are rarely concerned about consuming enough of it because it is present in most of the foods we eat. Despite its ubiquity and living organisms’ utter dependence on it, we know surprisingly little about how it moves, or cycles, through the ocean environment. (more…)

Lake Erie increasingly susceptible to large cyanobacteria blooms

By Guest PostNovember 4, 2014Environmentalgae, algae bloom, amputees, andrea brandt, autonomous vehicles, eddy kovarianz verfahren, food chain, georg wohlfahrt, knee prosthesis, lake erie, phosphorus, physical attributes, quagga, uncertain effect, university of michigan, wearable robotics, zebra mussels

ANN ARBOR — Lake Erie has become increasingly susceptible to large blooms of toxin-producing cyanobacteria since 2002, potentially complicating efforts to rein in the problem in the wake of this year’s Toledo drinking water crisis, according to a new study led by University of Michigan researchers. (more…)

How Do Phytoplankton Survive Scarcity of a Critical Nutrient?

By Guest PostJuly 10, 2014Environmentfossile zapfen, hiatus, janet sinsheimer, joann manson, life on earth, north atlantic, oceanic heat sink, oceanographic institution, phosphorus, phytoplankton, sargasso sea, simon poppinga, survive, thomas speck, whoi, woods hole, zapfen

New study up-ends conventional wisdom

Phytoplankton—tiny, photosynthetic organisms—are essential to life on Earth, supplying us with roughly half the oxygen we breathe. Like all other life forms, phytoplankton require the element phosphorus to carry out critical cellular activity, but in some parts of the world’s ocean, P is in limited supply. How do phytoplankton survive when phosphorus is difficult to find? (more…)

NASA Rover Finds Conditions Once Suited for Ancient Life on Mars

By Guest PostMarch 12, 2013Scienceancient life, ancient wet environment, bedrock, calcium sulfate, carbon, chemical energy source, chemical ingredients, chemin, chlorinated forms, condition, david blake, gale crater, hydrogen, instruments, john grotzinger, john klein, life, living microbes, mars, mars exploration program, methane, michael meyer, micro-organisms, mildly alkaline, mudstone, nasa rover, neutral, nitrogen, oxygen, paul mahaffy, phosphorus, powder, presence, red planet, rocknest, sam, soil, stream bed, sulfur, yellowknife bay

PASADENA, Calif. –– An analysis of a rock sample collected by NASA’s Curiosity rover shows ancient Mars could have supported living microbes.

Scientists identified sulfur, nitrogen, hydrogen, oxygen, phosphorus and carbon — some of the key chemical ingredients for life — in the powder Curiosity drilled out of a sedimentary rock near an ancient stream bed in Gale Crater on the Red Planet last month.

“A fundamental question for this mission is whether Mars could have supported a habitable environment,” said Michael Meyer, lead scientist for NASA’s Mars Exploration Program at the agency’s headquarters in Washington. “From what we know now, the answer is yes.” (more…)

Isotope Fingerprints

By Guest PostMarch 8, 2013Sciencealgae blooms, chemical elements, chesapeake bay, conflow, deb jaisi, DNA, ebl, ecological problems, eutrophication, irms, isotope fingerprints, isotope ratio, isotopic composition, mass spectrometer, mid atlantic, non terrestrial, oxygen deficiency, phosphate, phosphate oxygen isotopes, phosphorus, phosphorus backbone, phosphorus fraction, phosphorus rich fertilizer, phosphorus sources, rna, sediments, stable isotope facility, synchronizing unit, university of delaware, usda, water quality

Jaisi laboratory tracks chemicals in water, farmland throughout Mid-Atlantic

University of Delaware researcher Deb Jaisi is using his newly established stable isotope facility in the Environmental Biogeochemistry Laboratory (EBL) to find the fingerprints of isotopes in chemical elements — specifically phosphorus — in order to track sources of nutrients in the environmentally-sensitive Chesapeake Bay, other bodies of water and farmland throughout the Mid-Atlantic.

Jaisi, assistant professor in the Department of Plant and Soil Sciences in the College of Agriculture and Natural Resources, explained that he and his research team are currently working on many projects in the EBL, including two that are funded through seed grants, one focusing on terrestrial phosphorus sources and the other on marine phosphorus sources in the Chesapeake. One of those grants is from the UD Research Foundation (UDRF) and is titled “Role of Non-terrestrial Phosphorus Sources in Eutrophication in the Chesapeake Bay.” (more…)

WHOI Study Reports Microbes Consumed Oil in Gulf Slick at Unexpected Rates

By Guest PostAugust 4, 2011Environmentbacterial microbes, benjamin van mooy, bethanie edwards, breaking down the oil slick, catherine a carmichael, christopher m reddy, deepwater horizon spill, dilution, dispersion, evaporation, gulf of mexico, gulf waters, krista longnecker, largest oil spill in history, macondo well, metabolic potential, microbes, new cells, nitrogen, nutrients, oil consumption by the microbes, oxygen levels in water samples, oxygen optode, oxygen to create carbon dioxide and energy, phosphorus, richard camilli, sensor, state of the art methods, surface oil slick, whoi, woods hole oceanographic institution

More than a year after the largest oil spill in history, perhaps the dominant lingering question about the Deepwater Horizon spill is, “What happened to the oil?” Now, in the first published study to explain the role of microbes in breaking down the oil slick on the surface of the Gulf of Mexico, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) researchers have come up with answers that represent both surprisingly good news and a head-scratching mystery.

In research scheduled to be published in the Aug. 2 online edition of Environmental Research Letters, the WHOI team studied samples from the surface oil slick and surrounding Gulf waters. They found that bacterial microbes inside the slick degraded the oil at a rate five times faster than microbes outside the slick—accounting in large part for the disappearance of the slick some three weeks after Deepwater Horizon’s Macondo well was shut off. (more…)

River Mystery Solved

By Guest PostJune 5, 2011Environmentbacteria, biofilms, biogeochemical processes, blooms of didymo, Chile, didymo, didymo growth, didymosphenia geminata, freshwater algae, mats, microbes, microenvironment, national science foundation, new zealand, nutrients, oligotrophic, oliogotrophic streams, p v sundareshwar, phosphorus, rapid creek, rivers, rock, south dakota school of mines and technology, species, streams, tim kratz, uncommon environmental phenomena, unpolluted waterways, water bodies in the southern hemisphere

*Scientists discover how “Didymo” algae bloom in pristine waters with few nutrients*

The pristine state of unpolluted waterways may be their downfall, according to research results published in a paper this week in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.

A species of freshwater algae that lives in streams and rivers, called Didymo for Didymosphenia geminata, is able to colonize and dominate the bottoms of some of the world’s cleanest waterways–precisely because they are so clear. (more…)

New Evidence Supports Snowball Earth as Trigger for Early Animal Evolution

By Guest PostNovember 2, 20101 commentSciencebiogeochemists, enriqueta barrera, glacial events, glaciations, mid-neoproterozoic, noah planavsky, oceans, phosphorus, snowball earth, snowball earth hypothesis, tim lyons

Geologist Noah Plavansky examines rocks deposited after a "Snowball Earth" glacial event. Image credit: Lyons Lab, UC-Riverside

*Spike in ancient marine phosphorus concentrations linked to emergence of complex life*

Biogeochemists have found new evidence linking “Snowball Earth” glacial events to the rise of early animals. The research was funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF).

Study results appear in this week’s issue of the journal Nature.

The controversial Snowball Earth hypothesis posits that, on several occasions, the Earth was covered from pole to pole by a thick sheet of ice lasting for millions of years.

These glaciations, the most severe in Earth history, occurred from 750 to 580 million years ago. (more…)

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