Description: Calcifying marine phytoplankton - coccolithophores — are some of the most successful yet enigmatic organisms in the ocean and are at risk from global change. To better understand how they will be affected, we need to know “why” coccolithophores calcify. We review coccolithophorid evolutionary history and cell biology as well as insights from recent experiments to provide a critical assessment of the costs and benefits of calcification. We conclude that calcification has high energy demands and that coccolithophores might have calcified initially to reduce grazing pressure but that additional benefits such as protection from photodamage and viral/bacterial attack further explain their high diversity and broad spectrum ecology. The cost-benefit aspect of these traits is illustrated by novel ecosystem modeling, although conclusive observations remain limited. In the future ocean, the trade-off between changing ecological and physiological costs of calcification and their benefits will ultimately decide how this important group is affected by ocean acidification and global warming

Description: Atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations and climate are regulated on geological timescales by the balance between carbon input from volcanic and metamorphic outgassing and its removal by weathering feedbacks; these feedbacks involve the erosion of silicate rocks and organic-carbon-bearing rocks. The integrated effect of these processes is reflected in the calcium carbonate compensation depth, which is the oceanic depth at which calcium carbonate is dissolved. Here we present a carbonate accumulation record that covers the past 53 million years from a depth transect in the equatorial Pacific Ocean. The carbonate compensation depth tracks long-term ocean cooling, deepening from 3.0-3.5 kilometres during the early Cenozoic (approximately 55 million years ago) to 4.6 kilometres at present, consistent with an overall Cenozoic increase in weathering. We find large superimposed fluctuations in carbonate compensation depth during the middle and late Eocene. Using Earth system models, we identify changes in weathering and the mode of organic-carbon delivery as two key processes to explain these large-scale Eocene fluctuations of the carbonate compensation depth.

Description: Energy & Fuels DOI: 10.1021/acs.energyfuels.6b00875

Description: © The Author(s), 2019. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in Badger, M. P. S., Chalk, T. B., Foster, G. L., Bown, P. R., Gibbs, S. J., Sexton, P. F., Schmidt, D. N., Paelike, H., Mackensen, A., & Pancost, R. D.. Insensitivity of alkenone carbon isotopes to atmospheric CO2 at low to moderate CO2 levels. Climate of the Past, 15(2), (2019):539-554 doi:10.5194/cp-15-539-2019.

Description: Atmospheric pCO2 is a critical component of the global carbon system and is considered to be the major control of Earth's past, present, and future climate. Accurate and precise reconstructions of its concentration through geological time are therefore crucial to our understanding of the Earth system. Ice core records document pCO2 for the past 800 kyr, but at no point during this interval were CO2 levels higher than today. Interpretation of older pCO2 has been hampered by discrepancies during some time intervals between two of the main ocean-based proxy methods used to reconstruct pCO2: the carbon isotope fractionation that occurs during photosynthesis as recorded by haptophyte biomarkers (alkenones) and the boron isotope composition (δ11B) of foraminifer shells. Here, we present alkenone and δ11B-based pCO2 reconstructions generated from the same samples from the Pliocene and across a Pleistocene glacial–interglacial cycle at Ocean Drilling Program (ODP) Site 999. We find a muted response to pCO2 in the alkenone record compared to contemporaneous ice core and δ11B records, suggesting caution in the interpretation of alkenone-based records at low pCO2 levels. This is possibly caused by the physiology of CO2 uptake in the haptophytes. Our new understanding resolves some of the inconsistencies between the proxies and highlights that caution may be required when interpreting alkenone-based reconstructions of pCO2.

Description: This study used samples provided by the International Ocean Discovery Program (IODP). We thank Alex Hull and Gemma Bowler for laboratory work, Lisa Schönborn and Günter Meyer for technical assistance, Alison Kuhl and Ian Bull for research support, and Andy Milton at the University of Southampton for maintaining some of the mass spectrometers used in this study. This study was funded by NERC grant NE/H006273/1 to Richard D. Pancost, Daniela N. Schmidt and Gavin L. Foster (which supported Marcus P. S. Badger). We also acknowledge the ERC Award T-GRES and a Royal Society Wolfson Research Merit Award to Richard D. Pancost. Gavin L. Foster is also supported by a Royal Society Wolfson Research Merit Award. We thank Kirsty Edgar for comments on an early draft of the manuscript, the two anonymous reviewers of this submission, and reviewers through various rounds of review whose comments greatly improved the manuscript. We are grateful to Thomas Bauska for encouraging us to do better at referencing the ice core data, and John Jasper for discussion of the early days of the alkenone palaeobarometer.

Description: Coccolithophores are an abundant phytoplankton group that exhibit remarkable diversity in their biology, ecology and calcitic exoskeletons (coccospheres). Their extensive fossil record is a testament to their important biogeochemical role and is a valuable archive of biotic responses to environmental change stretching back over 200 million years. However, to realise the full potential of this archive for (palaeo-)biology and biogeochemistry requires an understanding of the physiological processes that underpin coccosphere architecture. Using culturing experiments on four modern coccolithophore species (Calcidiscus leptoporus, Calcidiscus quadriperforatus, Helicosphaera carteri and Coccolithus braarudii) from three long-lived families, we investigate how coccosphere architecture responds to shifts from exponential (rapid cell division) to stationary (slowed cell division) growth phases as cell physiology reacts to nutrient depletion. These experiments reveal statistical differences in coccosphere size and the number of coccoliths per cell between these two growth phases, specifically that cells in exponential-phase growth are typically smaller with fewer coccoliths, whereas cells experiencing growth-limiting nutrient depletion have larger coccosphere sizes and greater numbers of coccoliths per cell. Although the exact numbers are species-specific, these growth-phase shifts in coccosphere geometry demonstrate that the core physiological responses of cells to nutrient depletion result in increased coccosphere sizes and coccoliths per cell across four different coccolithophore families (Calcidiscaceae, Coccolithaceae, Isochrysidaceae and Helicosphaeraceae), a representative diversity of this phytoplankton group. Building on this, the direct comparison of coccosphere geometries in modern and fossil coccolithophores enables a proxy for growth phase to be developed that can be used to investigate growth responses to environmental change throughout their long evolutionary history. Our data also show that changes in growth rate and coccoliths per cell associated with growth-phase shifts can substantially alter cellular calcite production. Coccosphere geometry is therefore a valuable tool for accessing growth information in the fossil record, providing unprecedented insights into the response of species to environmental change and the potential biogeochemical consequences.

Description: Atmospheric _p_CO~2~ is a critical component of the global carbon system and is considered to be the major control of Earth's past, present and future climate. Accurate and precise reconstructions of its concentration through geological time are, therefore, crucial to our understanding of the Earth system. Ice core records document _p_CO~2~ for the past 800 kyrs, but at no point during this interval were CO~2~ levels higher than today. Interpretation of older _p_CO~2~ has been hampered by discrepancies during some time intervals between two of the main ocean-based proxy methods used to reconstruct _p_CO~2~: the carbon isotope fractionation that occurs during photosynthesis as recorded by haptophyte biomarkers (alkenones) and the boron isotope composition (δ^11^B) of foraminifer shells. Here we present alkenone and δ^11^B-based _p_CO~2~ reconstructions generated from the same samples from the Plio-Pleistocene at ODP Site 999 across a glacial-interglacial cycle. We find a muted response to _p_CO~2~ in the alkenone record compared to contemporaneous ice core and δ^11^B records, suggesting caution in the interpretation of alkenone-based records at low _p_CO~2~ levels. This is possibly caused by the physiology of CO~2~ uptake in the haptophytes. Our new understanding resolves some of the inconsistencies between the proxies and highlights that caution may be required when interpreting alkenone-based reconstructions of _p_CO~2~.