The expansion of OMZs (oxygen minimum zones) due to climate change and their possible evolution and impacts on the ecosystems and the atmosphere are still debated, mostly because of the unability of global climate models to adequatly reproduce the processes governing OMZs. In this study, we examine the factors controlling the oxygen budget, i.e. the equilibrium between oxygen sources and sinks ...

A pronounced deficit of nitrogen (N) in the oxygen minimum zone (OMZ) of the Arabian Sea suggests the occurrence of heavy N-loss that is commonly attributed to pelagic processes. However, the OMZ water is in direct contact with sediments on three sides of the basin. Contribution from benthic N-loss to the total N-loss in the Arabian Sea remains largely unassessed. In October 2007, we sampled th...

A new species, Melithaea davidisp. n., is described from the eastern coast of Oman, Oman Sea, in the northwestern Indian Ocean, where it differs from its congeners in lacking capstans and having predominantly spindles in the coenenchyme. A molecular phylogenetic analysis of mtMutS and 28S rDNA genes suggests that it is genetically distinct from similar species in the Red Sea. Furthermore, a spe...

A clear understanding of population structure is essential for assessing conservation status and implementing management strategies. A small, non-migratory population of humpback whales in the Arabian Sea is classified as "Endangered" on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, an assessment constrained by a lack of data, including limited understanding of its relationship to other populations....

[1] Aerosols act as cloud condensation nuclei for cloud water droplets, with changes in aerosol concentrations having significant impacts on the corresponding cloud properties. An increase in aerosol concentration may lead to an increase in CCN, with an associated decrease in cloud droplet size for a given cloud liquid water content. Smaller droplet sizes may then lead to a reduction in precipi...

Based on distinct colony morphology, color, size, shape and certain other traits, 92 bacterial isolates were investigated to understand their managerial ability on iron from the Arabian Sea and Equatorial Indian Ocean samples. The ARDRA (amplified rDNA restriction analysis) applied to eliminate the duplication of the bacterial strains, resulted 39 different banding patterns. The 16S rRNA gene s...

Oxygen minimum zones (OMZ) are areas in the global ocean where oxygen concentrations drop to below one percent. Low oxygen concentrations allow alternative respiration with nitrate and nitrite as electron acceptor to become prevalent in these areas, making them main contributors to oceanic nitrogen loss. The contribution of anammox and denitrification to nitrogen loss seems to vary in different...

Coastal regions are potential zones for production of methane which could be governed by ecological/environmental differences or even sediment properties of a niche. In order to test the hypothesis that methanogenesis in most marine sediments could be driven more by proteins than by carbohydrates and lipid content of labile organic matter (LOM), incubation experiments were carried out with sedi...

The north Indian Ocean is distinguished by the presence of seasonally reversing currents that flow between the Bay of Bengal and the Arabian Sea. These currents are located between the equator and approximately 10 N. The Summer Monsoon Current (SMC) flows eastward during the summer monsoon (May–September) and the Winter Monsoon Current (WMC) flows westward during the winter monsoon (November–Fe...

In the Arabian Sea, South Asian monsoon (SAM)-induced high surface water productivity coupled with poor ventilation of intermediate water results in strong denitrification within the oxygen minimum zone (OMZ). Despite the significance of denitrification in the Arabian Sea, we have no long-term record of its evolution spanning the past several million years. Here, we present the first record of ...