Studies in the Terrestrial Biosphere, the Atmosphere, and Ice Cores

Starting with the work of Ben Houlton, we have collaborated with the group of Lars Hedin in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology in isotope studies of terrestrial N cycling. We have also worked on the nitrate N and O isotopes in rain, snow, and ice as tracers of reactive nitrogen sources and processing in the modern and ancient atmosphere.

References

AuthorTitleTypeYear
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209 Publications
The Bering Strait was flooded 10,000 years before the Last Glacial Maximum
Jesse Farmer, Tamara Pico, Ona Underwood, Rebecca Stout, Julie Granger, Thomas Cronin, François Fripiat, Alfredo Martínez-García, Gerald Haug, Daniel Sigman

The cyclic growth and decay of continental ice sheets can be reconstructed from the history of global sea level. Sea level is relatively well constrained for the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM, 26,500 to 19,000 y ago, 26.5 to 19 ka) and the ensuing deglaciation. However, sea-level estimates for the period of ice-sheet growth before the LGM vary by …

Carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen stable isotopes in modern tooth enamel: A case study from Gorongosa National Park, central Mozambique
Tina Lüdecke, Jennifer Leichliter, Vera Aldeias, Marion Bamford, Dora Biro, David Braun, Cristian Capelli, Jonathan Cybulski, Nicolas Duprey, Maria da Silva, Alan Foreman, Jörg Habermann, Gerald Haug, Felipe Martínez, Jacinto Mathe, Andreas Mulch, Daniel Sigman, Hubert Vonhof, René Bobe, Susana Carvalho, Alfredo Martínez-García
The analyses of the stable isotope ratios of carbon (δ13C), nitrogen (δ15N), and oxygen (δ18O) in animal tissues are powerful tools for reconstructing the feeding behavior of individual animals and characterizing trophic interactions in food webs. Of these biomaterials, tooth enamel is the hardest, most mineralized vertebrate tissue and therefore…
Oceanic nutrient rise and the late Miocene inception of Pacific oxygen-deficient zones
X.T. Wang, Y. Wang, A. Auderset, D.M. Sigman, H. Ren, A. Martínez-García, G.H. Haug, Z. Su, Y.G. Zhang, B. Rasmussen, A.L. Sessions, W.W. Fischer
The modern Pacific Ocean hosts the largest oxygen-deficient zones (ODZs), where oxygen concentrations are so low that nitrate is used to respire organic matter. The history of the ODZs may offer key insights into ocean deoxygenation under future global warming. In a 12-My record from the southeastern Pacific, we observe a >10 increase in…
The Angola Gyre is a hotspot of dinitrogen fixation in the South Atlantic Ocean
T. Marshall, J. Granger, K.L. Casciotti, K. Dähnke, K.-C. Emeis, D. Marconi, M.R. McIlvin, A.E. Noble, M.A. Saito, D.M. Sigman, S.E. Fawcett

Biological dinitrogen fixation is the major source of new nitrogen to marine systems and thus essential to the ocean’s biological pump. Constraining the distribution and global rate of dinitrogen fixation has proven challenging owing largely to uncertainty surrounding the controls thereon. Existing South Atlantic dinitrogen fixation rate…

Enhanced ocean oxygenation during Cenozoic warm periods
A. Auderset, S. Moretti, B. Taphorn, P.-R. Ebner, E. Kast, X.T. Wang, R. Schiebel, D.M. Sigman, G.H. Haug, A. Martínez-García

Dissolved oxygen (O2) is essential for most ocean ecosystems, fuelling organisms’ respiration and facilitating the cycling of carbon and nutrients. Oxygen measurements have been interpreted to indicate that the ocean’s oxygen-deficient zones (ODZs) are expanding under global warming1,2. However, models provide an unclear picture of future ODZ…

Laboratory Assessment of the Impact of Chemical Oxidation, Mineral Dissolution, and Heating on the Nitrogen Isotopic Composition of Fossil-Bound Organic Matter
A. Martínez-García, J. Jung, X.E. Ai, D.M. Sigman, A. Auderset, N.N. Duprey, A. Foreman, F. Fripiat, J. Leichliter, T. Lüdecke, S. Moretti, T. Wald

Fossil-bound organic material holds great potential for the reconstruction of past changes in nitrogen (N) cycling. Here, with a series of laboratory experiments, we assess the potential effect of oxidative degradation, fossil dissolution, and thermal alteration on the fossil-bound N isotopic composition of different fossil types, including…

Cenozoic megatooth sharks occupied extremely high trophic positions
E.R. Kast, M.L. Griffiths, S.L. Kim, Z.C. Rao, K. Shimada, M.A. Becker, H.M. Maisch, R.A. Eagle, C.A. Clarke, A.N. Neumann, M.E. Karnes, T. Lüdecke, J.N. Leichliter, A. Martínez-García, A.A. Akhtar, X.T. Wang, G.H. Haug, D.M. Sigman
Controls on the nitrogen isotopic composition of fish otolith organic matter: Lessons from a controlled diet switch experiment
J.A. Lueders-Dumont, A.G. Forden, E.R. Kast, J.A. Mohan, B.D. Walther, D.M. Sigman, B.B. Ward

The nitrogen isotopes (δ15N) in the organic fraction of accretionary hard part structures, such as fish otoliths, may provide life histories of dietary change. We performed controlled experiments to validate the dynamics of the isotopic signal incorporation into biominerals following dietary shifts and also compared whole-otolith and serial…

In-line optical subtraction using a differential Faraday rotation spectrometer for 15NO/14NO isotopic analysis
Eric Zhang
Distinct nitrogen isotopic compositions of healthy and cancerous tissue in mice brain and head&neck micro-biopsies
M. Straub, D.M. Sigman, A. Auderset, J. Ollivier, B. Petit, B. Hinnenberg, F. Rubach, S. Oleynik, M.-C. Vozenin, A. Martínez-García
Background: Cancerous cells can recycle metabolic ammonium for their growth. As this ammonium has a low nitrogen isotope ratio (15N/14N), its recycling may cause cancer tissue to have lower 15N/14N than surrounding healthy tissue. We investigated whether, within a given tissue type in individual mice, tumoral and healthy tissues could be…
Nitrogen isotopic constraints on nutrient transport to the upper ocean
F. Fripiat, A. Martínez-García, D. Marconi, S.E. Fawcett, S.H. Kopf, V.H. Luu, P.A. Rafter, R. Zhang, D.M. Sigman, G.H. Haug
Ocean circulation supplies the surface ocean with the nutrients that fuel global ocean productivity. However, the mechanisms and rates of water and nutrient transport from the deep ocean to the upper ocean are poorly known. Here, we use the nitrogen isotopic composition of nitrate to place observational constraints on nutrient transport from the…
Arctic Ocean stratification set by sea level and freshwater inputs since the last ice age
J.R. Farmer, D.M. Sigman, J. Granger, O.M. Underwood, F. Fripiat, T.M. Cronin, A. Martínez-García, G.H. Haug
Salinity-driven density stratification of the upper Arctic Ocean isolates sea-ice cover and cold, nutrient-poor surface waters from underlying warmer, nutrient-rich waters. Recently, stratification has strengthened in the western Arctic but has weakened in the eastern Arctic; it is unknown if these trends will continue. Here we present…
Correlation between the carbon isotopic composition of planktonic foraminifera-bound organic matter and surface water pCO2 across the equatorial Pacific
K.A. Swart, S. Oleynik, A. Martínez-García, G.H. Haug, D.M. Sigman

For times prior to those represented by the air trapped in Antarctic ice core records, the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere must be reconstructed using geochemical proxies. The δ13C of particulate organic carbon (POC) produced in ocean surface waters has previously been observed to covary with the concentration of CO2 in the water…

Ice Age-Holocene Similarity of Foraminifera-Bound Nitrogen Isotope Ratios in the Eastern Equatorial Pacific
A.S. Studer, F. Mekik, H. Ren, M.P. Hain, S. Oleynik, A. Martínez-García, G.H. Haug, D.M. Sigman
Bulk sediment δ15N records from the eastern tropical Pacific (ETP) extending back to the last ice age most often show low glacial δ15N, then a deglacial δ15N maximum, followed by a gradual decline to a late Holocene δ15N that is typically higher than that of the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM). The lower δ15N of the LGM has been interpreted to reflect…
Nitrogen isotopes in tooth enamel record diet and trophic level enrichment: Results from a controlled feeding experiment
J.N. Leichliter, T. Lüdecke, A.D. Foreman, N.N. Duprey, D.E. Winkler, E.R. Kast, H. Vonhof, D.M. Sigman, G.H. Haug, M. Clauss, T. Tütken, A. Martínez-García
Nitrogen isotope ratios (δ15N) are a well-established tool for investigating the dietary and trophic behavior of animals in terrestrial and marine food webs. To date, δ15N values in fossils have primarily been measured in collagen extracted from bone or dentin, which is susceptible to degradation and rarely preserved in deep time (>100,000…
The Southern Ocean during the ice ages: A review of the Antarctic surface isolation hypothesis, with comparison to the North Pacific
D.M. Sigman, F. Fripiat, A.S. Studer, P.C. Kemeny, A. Martínez-García, M.P. Hain, X. Ai, X. Wang, H. Ren, G.H. Haug
The Southern Ocean is widely recognized as a potential cause of the lower atmospheric concentration of CO2 during ice ages, but the mechanism is debated. Focusing on the Southern Ocean surface, we review biogeochemical paleoproxy data and carbon cycle concepts that together favor the view that both the Antarctic and Subantarctic Zones (AZ and SAZ)…
Comparison of the isotopic composition of fish otolith-bound organic N with host tissue
J.A. Lueders-Dumont, D.M. Sigman, B.J. Johnson, O.P. Jensen, S. Oleynik, B.B. Ward
The15N/14N ratio of the fish-native organic matter preserved in fish otoliths (or δ15Noto) may allow for reconstruction of fish trophic history and changes in food webs. To support this application, ground-truthing data are needed on the relationships among the δ15N of diet, of fish tissue (e.g., white muscle tissue, δ15Nwmt), and δ15Noto. Using a…
Southern Ocean upwelling, Earth s obliquity, and glacial-interglacial atmospheric CO2 change
X.E. Ai, A.S. Studer, D.M. Sigman, A. Martínez-García, F. Fripiat, L.M. Thöle, E. Michel, J. Gottschalk, L. Arnold, S. Moretti, M. Schmitt, S. Oleynik, S.L. Jaccard, G.H. Haug
Previous studies have suggested that during the late Pleistocene ice ages, surface-deep exchange was somehow weakened in the Southern Ocean s Antarctic Zone, which reduced the leakage of deeply sequestered carbon dioxide and thus contributed to the lower atmospheric carbon dioxide levels of the ice ages. Here, high-resolution diatom-bound nitrogen…
Dissolved Organic Nitrogen Cycling in the South China Sea From an Isotopic Perspective
R. Zhang, X.T. Wang, H. Ren, J. Huang, M. Chen, D.M. Sigman
Dissolved organic nitrogen (DON) is the dominant form of fixed nitrogen in most low and middle latitude ocean surface waters. Here, we report measurements of DON isotopic composition (δ15N) from the west South China Sea (SCS), with the goal of providing new insight into DON cycling. The concentration of DON in the surface ocean is correlated (r =…
Erratum: Global nitrogen cycle: Critical enzymes, organisms, and processes for nitrogen budgets and dynamics (Chemical Reviews (2020) 120:12 (5308-5351) DOI: 10.1021/acs.chemrev.9b00613)
X. Zhang, B.B. Ward, D.M. Sigman
(Figure Presented) Figure 4. Cycle of biologically driven N transformations that occur in natural and human-influenced terrestrial and marine environments. Nitrogen (N2) fixation (step 1) and N assimilation (from ammonium, nitrate, or organic N, step 2) are anabolic processes, whereas mineralization (step 3), nitrification (steps 4−6), DNRA (steps 7,…