Declining oxygen in the global ocean and coastal waters
Top Cited Papers
Open Access
- 5 January 2018
- journal article
- review article
- Published by American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in Science
- Vol. 359 (6371), eaam7240-+
- https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aam7240
Abstract
Beneath the waves, oxygen disappears: As plastic waste pollutes the oceans and fish stocks decline, unseen below the surface another problem grows: deoxygenation. Breitburg et al. review the evidence for the downward trajectory of oxygen levels in increasing areas of the open ocean and coastal waters. Rising nutrient loads coupled with climate change—each resulting from human activities—are changing ocean biogeochemistry and increasing oxygen consumption. This results in destabilization of sediments and fundamental shifts in the availability of key nutrients. In the short term, some compensatory effects may result in improvements in local fisheries, such as in cases where stocks are squeezed between the surface and elevated oxygen minimum zones. In the longer term, these conditions are unsustainable and may result in ecosystem collapses, which ultimately will cause societal and economic harm. Science , this issue p. eaam7240Funding Information
- DFG (SFB754)
- NOAA-CSCOR (NA10NOS4780138)
- Maryland Sea Grant (SA75281450-P)
- NSF-EAR (1324095)
- FNRS and the BENTHOX program (T.1009.15)
This publication has 121 references indexed in Scilit:
- Denitrification in the water column of the central Baltic SeaGeochimica et Cosmochimica Acta, 2013
- Human‐induced marine ecological degradation: micropaleontological perspectivesEcology and Evolution, 2012
- Simple transfer functions for calculating benthic fixed nitrogen losses and C:N:P regeneration ratios in global biogeochemical modelsGlobal Biogeochemical Cycles, 2012
- Microbial ecology of expanding oxygen minimum zonesNature Reviews Microbiology, 2012
- Oxygen: A Fundamental Property Regulating Pelagic Ecosystem Structure in the Coastal Southeastern Tropical PacificPLOS ONE, 2011
- Observed decreases in oxygen content of the global oceanGeophysical Research Letters, 2011
- Tracking Baltic hypoxia and cod migration over millennia with natural tagsProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2011
- Sensitivity of simulated extent and future evolution of marine suboxia to mixing intensityGeophysical Research Letters, 2011
- Trophic Structure and Community Stability in an Overfished EcosystemScience, 2010
- Thresholds of hypoxia for marine biodiversityProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2008