Litter decomposition is an enzymatically-complex process that is mediated by a diverse assemblage of saprophytic microorganisms. It is a globally important biogeochemical process that can be suppressed by anthropogenic N deposition. In a northern hardwood forest ecosystem located in Michigan, USA, 20 years of experimentally increased atmospheric N deposition has reduced forest floor decay and i...

1. Sources of atmospheric CH4 are both naturally occurring and anthropogenic. In fact, some anthropogenic activities may influence the production of CH4 from natural sources, such as lakes. 2. Ongoing changes in the catchment of lakes, including eutrophication and increased terrestrial organic carbon export, may affect CH4 production rates as well as shape methanogen abundance and community str...

Disentangling the effects of climate change and anthropogenic activities on the environment is a major challenge in paleoenvironmental research. Here, we used fecal sterols and other biogeochemical compounds in lake sediments from northern Norway to identify both natural and anthropogenic signals of environmental change during the late Holocene. The area was first occupied by humans and their g...

Anthropogenic disturbance is a relevant and widespread facilitator of environmental change and there is clear evidence that it impacts natural populations. While population-level responses to major anthropogenic changes have been well studied, individual physiological responses to mild disturbance can be equally critical to the long-term survival of a species, yet they remain largely unexamined...

Demographic studies that monitor population dynamics are an essential component in establishing conservation strategies. The conventional view that human disturbance results in negative effects to species and habitats is countered by the fact that some anthropogenic activities result in the origin of new habitat opportunities for species. Faced with an increase in European restoration programs,...

Cetacean responses to marine anthropogenic activities include changes in acoustic behavior, surface behavior, dive behavior, direction of travel, and behavioral activity states. However, the consequences of these behavioral responses are often difficult to quantify in biological currencies. Previous studies, including our ONR-supported work on the metabolic costs of communicative sound and clic...

Signatories of the Kyoto Protocol are obliged to submit annual accounts of their anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions, which include nitrous oxide (N(2)O). Emissions from the sectors industry (3.8 Gg), energy (14.4 Gg), agriculture (86.8 Gg), wastewater (4.4 Gg), land use, land-use change and forestry (2.1 Gg) can be calculated by multiplying activity data (i.e. amount of fertilizer applied, ...

Global-scale tracer simulations are typically made at coarse resolution without explicitly modeling eddies. Here we ask what role do eddies play in ocean uptake, storage, and meridional transport of transient tracers. We made global anthropogenic transient-tracer simulations in non-eddying (2 • cos ϕ×2 • , ORCA2) and eddying (1 2 • cos ϕ× 1 2 • , 5 ORCA05) versions of the ocean general circulat...

Global ocean acidification is caused primarily by the ocean's uptake of CO2 as a consequence of increasing atmospheric CO2 levels. We present observations of the oceanic decrease in pH at the basin scale (50 °S-36 °N) for the Atlantic Ocean over two decades (1993-2013). Changes in pH associated with the uptake of anthropogenic CO2 (ΔpHCant) and with variations caused by biological activity and ...