Practice Blog

Nitrogen cycling in the ocean plays a critical role in regulating marine life, carbon storage, and Earth’s climate. When biologically easily available usable nitrogen is lost from the ocean, biological productivity declines, reducing the ocean’s ability to absorb and store carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. These nitrogen losses also influence emissions of nitrous oxide, a powerful greenhouse gas. Because microbial processes control whether nitrogen is recycled or permanently lostremoved, understanding how these processes respond to changing environmental conditions is essential for predicting the future of ocean ecosystems and climate regulation.

As climate change and human activity continue to reduce oxygen levels in the ocean, low-oxygen zones are expanding and intensifying. Despite their small size, these regions account for a large share of global nitrogen loss, yet current climate models cannot reliably predict their impact. This uncertainty limits our ability to forecast future ocean productivity, greenhouse gas emissions, and climate feedbacks. By revealing how microbes control nitrogen transformations in oxygen-depleted waters, RECLESS provides the knowledge needed to improve climate models and better anticipate how ongoing ocean deoxygenation will shape the Earth system.

Author: RECLESS team