September 2019 Volume 12, Issue 9

Editorial

Quality and equality in review    p681
doi:10.1038/s41561-019-0449-9

News & Views

Perspectives

Global-change controls on soil-carbon accumulation and loss in coastal vegetated ecosystems    pp685 - 692
Amanda C. Spivak, Jonathan Sanderman, Jennifer L. Bowen, Elizabeth A. Canuel & Charles S. Hopkinson
doi:10.1038/s41561-019-0435-2

Coastal vegetated ecosystems have experienced rapid changes in climate and environmental conditions. These changes have caused disturbances to the amount of carbon they store in soils by altering the decomposition process of organic carbon.

Matters Arising

Complexities between plants and the atmosphere    pp693 - 694
Bin Wang, Herman H. Shugart & Manuel T. Lerdau
doi:10.1038/s41561-019-0413-8

Reply to: Complexities between plants and the atmosphere    p695
A. Rap, C. E. Scott, C. L. Reddington, L. Mercado, R. J. Ellis et al.
doi:10.1038/s41561-019-0437-0

Articles

Early Moon formation inferred from hafnium–tungsten systematics    pp696 - 700
Maxwell M. Thiemens, Peter Sprung, Raúl O. C. Fonseca, Felipe P. Leitzke & Carsten Münker
doi:10.1038/s41561-019-0398-3

The Moon formed around 50 Myr after the Solar System, suggests a lunar silicate Hf/W ratio higher than that of Earth, from high-precision compositional analysis of lunar rock samples.

Abundance of highly siderophile elements in lunar basalts controlled by iron sulfide melt    pp701 - 706
James M. Brenan, James E. Mungall & Neil R. Bennett
doi:10.1038/s41561-019-0426-3

The abundance of iron-loving elements in Moon rocks cannot indicate the amount of late accretion onto the Moon, according to experiments and thermodynamic calculations constraining the behaviour of these elements under lunar mantle conditions.

Tin isotopes indicative of liquid–vapour equilibration and separation in the Moon-forming disk    pp707 - 711
Xueying Wang, Caroline Fitoussi, Bernard Bourdon, Bruce Fegley Jr & Sébastien Charnoz
doi:10.1038/s41561-019-0433-4

Vigorous mixing between the protolunar disk and Earth followed by processes in the cooling disk may explain the enrichment in light isotopes of tin on the Moon relative to Earth, as found by analysis of lunar rocks and geochemical calculations.

Amplification of mega-heatwaves through heat torrents fuelled by upwind drought    pp712 - 717
Dominik L. Schumacher, Jessica Keune, Chiel C. van Heerwaarden, Jordi Vilà-Guerau de Arellano, Adriaan J. Teuling et al.
doi:10.1038/s41561-019-0431-6

The European mega-heatwaves in 2003 and 2010 were intensified by torrents of hot air that were transported in from desiccated regions upwind, suggests an analysis of observations and reanalysis data together with a Lagrangian heat-tracking framework.

West Antarctic ice loss influenced by internal climate variability and anthropogenic forcing    pp718 - 724
Paul R. Holland, Thomas J. Bracegirdle, Pierre Dutrieux, Adrian Jenkins & Eric J. Steig
doi:10.1038/s41561-019-0420-9

Anthropogenic changes in Antarctic shelf-break winds from the 1920s onwards have contributed to ice loss in the Amundsen Sea, along with natural variability, suggests an analysis of observations and model simulations.

Carbon stocks in central African forests enhanced by elephant disturbance    pp725 - 729
Fabio Berzaghi, Marcos Longo, Philippe Ciais, Stephen Blake, François Bretagnolle et al.
doi:10.1038/s41561-019-0395-6

Elephant disturbance favours the emergence of larger trees with higher wood density, and thereby increases the aboveground biomass in central African forests by up to 60 t ha^–1, according to simulations with the Ecosystem Demography model.

Important role of forest disturbances in the global biomass turnover and carbon sinks    pp730 - 735
Thomas A. M. Pugh, Almut Arneth, Markus Kautz, Benjamin Poulter & Benjamin Smith
doi:10.1038/s41561-019-0427-2

Forest stand-replacing disturbances significantly affect the biomass stocks in about a half of forested area globally, according to analyses of global forest loss from satellite data, together with a dynamic vegetation model.

Amazon forest response to CO₂ fertilization dependent on plant phosphorus acquisition    pp736 - 741
Katrin Fleischer, Anja Rammig, Martin G. De Kauwe, Anthony P. Walker, Tomas F. Domingues et al.
doi:10.1038/s41561-019-0404-9

Phosphorus limitation can significantly reduce the response of the Amazon forest to CO₂ fertilization, according to ecosystem-model ensemble simulations of a free-air CO₂ enrichment experiment.

Global fire emissions buffered by the production of pyrogenic carbon    pp742 - 747
Matthew W. Jones, Cristina Santín, Guido R. van der Werf & Stefan H. Doerr
doi:10.1038/s41561-019-0403-x

Pyrogenic carbon produced from vegetation fires could be a globally important carbon sink, which amounts to 12% of the carbon emitted from wildfires annually, according to a global fire emission database that incorporates the estimate of pyrogenic carbon.

Important contribution of macroalgae to oceanic carbon sequestration    pp748 - 754
Alejandra Ortega, Nathan R. Geraldi, Intikhab Alam, Allan A. Kamau, Silvia G. Acinas et al.
doi:10.1038/s41561-019-0421-8

Macroalgae can be transported across the open ocean, and substantial amounts can reach the seafloor at 4,000 m depth, according to analyses of metagenome data from global expeditions. Macroalgae are a potentially important oceanic carbon sink globally.

Persistence of dissolved organic matter explained by molecular changes during its passage through soil    pp755 - 761
Vanessa-Nina Roth, Markus Lange, Carsten Simon, Norbert Hertkorn, Sebastian Bucher et al.
doi:10.1038/s41561-019-0417-4

Dissolved organic matter is persistent in soil owing to continuous consumption and transformation rather than owing to its recalcitrant molecular properties, according to analyses of molecular changes of dissolved organic matter as it passes through soil.

Optimal depth of subvolcanic magma chamber growth controlled by volatiles and crust rheology    pp762 - 768
Christian Huber, Meredith Townsend, Wim Degruyter & Olivier Bachmann
doi:10.1038/s41561-019-0415-6

Volatile exsolution and crustal viscosity dictate that the optimum pressure for the growth of an eruptible magma reservoir is 2 kbar in all tectonic settings and crustal compositions, according to thermomechanical modelling.

Early continental crust generated by reworking of basalts variably silicified by seawater    pp769 - 773
Luc André, Kathrin Abraham, Axel Hofmann, Laurence Monin, Ilka C. Kleinhanns et al.
doi:10.1038/s41561-019-0408-5

Granitic continental crust in the Archaean formed from a basaltic source that was enriched in silica due to interaction with the early oceans before melting, according to silicon isotope analyses on rocks from the Kaapvaal craton.

An oceanic subduction origin for Archaean granitoids revealed by silicon isotopes    pp774 - 778
Zhengbin Deng, Marc Chaussidon, Martin Guitreau, Igor S. Puchtel, Nicolas Dauphas et al.
doi:10.1038/s41561-019-0407-6

Archaean granitic rocks formed by melting of silica-enriched subducted basaltic crust through interaction with seawater, according to heavy silicon isotopes measured in Archaean samples.

Selenium isotopes as tracers of a late volatile contribution to Earth from the outer Solar System    pp779 - 782
María Isabel Varas-Reus, Stephan König, Aierken Yierpan, Jean-Pierre Lorand & Ronny Schoenberg
doi:10.1038/s41561-019-0414-7

Material that accreted to Earth after its core formed largely comprised carbonaceous, volatile-rich meteorites, according to analysis of the selenium isotopic composition of terrestrial mantle rocks.

Amendments & Corrections

Author Correction: Persistent organic matter in oxic subseafloor sediment    pp783 - 784
Emily R. Estes, Robert Pockalny, Steven D'Hondt, Fumio Inagaki, Yuki Morono et al.
doi:10.1038/s41561-019-0423-6