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Published May 19, 2017 | public
Journal Article

21st-century rise in anthropogenic nitrogen deposition on a remote coral reef

Abstract

With the rapid rise in pollution-associated nitrogen inputs to the western Pacific, it has been suggested that even the open ocean has been affected. In a coral core from Dongsha Atoll, a remote coral reef ecosystem, we observe a decline in the ^(15)N/^(14)N of coral skeleton–bound organic matter, which signals increased deposition of anthropogenic atmospheric N on the open ocean and its incorporation into plankton and, in turn, the atoll corals. The first clear change occurred just before 2000 CE, decades later than predicted by other work. The amplitude of change suggests that, by 2010, anthropogenic atmospheric N deposition represented 20 ± 5% of the annual N input to the surface ocean in this region, which appears to be at the lower end of other estimates.

Additional Information

© 2017 American Association for the Advancement of Science. 11 November 2016; accepted 6 April 2017. We thank G. P. Lohmann, K.-Y. Lee, Y.-C. Wu, L. Hou, and J.-H. Tai, for their assistance with fieldwork and coral coring in Dongsha Atoll. We also thank I. I. Lin, K. Soong, and Dongsha Atoll Research Station for their constructive input and support. Funding was provided by Ministry of Science and Technology of Taiwan (MOST) grant 105-2628-M-002-007-MY3, National Taiwan University grants NTU-SINICA-105R104513, NTU-CESRP-105R7625, and NTU-CDP-105R7719 to H.R., the Sustainability Science Research Program of the Academia Sinica to G.T.F.W. and A.L.C., Taiwan MOST grant NSC 101-2611-M-001-003-MY3 to G.T.F.W., U.S. NSF grants 1536368 and 1537338 to A.L.C. and D.M.S., the Grand Challenges Program of Princeton University to D.M.S., and an Academia Sinica Distinguished Postdoctoral Fellowship to H.R. The data reported in this work will be accessible at National Centers for Environmental Information, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration once the paper is published online.

Additional details

Created:
August 19, 2023
Modified:
October 25, 2023