Rapid oxygen utilization in the ocean twilight zone assessed with the cosmogenic isotope7Be

Rapid oxygen utilization in the ocean twilight zone assessed with the cosmogenic isotope

[1] The rate of oxygen utilization beneath the sunlit surface ocean provides a measure of the export rate of biologically produced carbon to the deep sea, and its variation with depth suggests where remineralization of that carbon occurs. The latter consideration is relevant to the efficiency of carbon sequestration in deep water. However, accurate characterization of this process, particularly...

Causal Thinking in the Twilight Zone

To students of causality, the writings of William Cochran provide an excellent and intriguing vantage point for studying how statistics, lacking the necessary mathematical tools, managed nevertheless to cope with increasing demands for policy evaluation from observational studies. Cochran met this challenge in the years 1955-1980, when statistics was preparing for a profound, albeit tortuous tr...

ConFunc - functional annotation in the twilight zone

MOTIVATION The success of genome sequencing has resulted in many protein sequences without functional annotation. We present ConFunc, an automated Gene Ontology (GO)-based protein function prediction approach, which uses conserved residues to generate sequence profiles to infer function. ConFunc split sets of sequences identified by PSI-BLAST into sub-alignments according to their GO annotation...

Bacterial vs . zooplankton control of sinking particle flux in the ocean ’ s twilight zone 1 2

Effects of Ocean Acidification on the Ballast of Surface Aggregates Sinking through the Twilight Zone

The dissolution of CaCO(3) is one of the ways ocean acidification can, potentially, greatly affect the ballast of aggregates. A diminution of the ballast could reduce the settling speed of aggregates, resulting in a change in the carbon flux to the deep sea. This would mean lower amounts of more refractory organic matter reaching the ocean floor. This work aimed to determine the effect of ocean...