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Abstract
Globally, soils store two to three times as much carbon as currently resides in the atmosphere, and it is critical to understand how soil greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and uptake will respond to ongoing climate change. In particular, the soil-to-atmosphere CO(2)flux, commonly though imprecisely termed soil respiration (R-S), is one of the largest carbon fluxes in the Earth system. An increasing number of high-frequencyR(S)measurements (typically, from an automated system with hourly sampling) have been made over the last two decades; an increasing number of methane measurements are being made with such systems as well. Such high frequency data are an invaluable resource for understanding GHG fluxes, but lack a central database or repository. Here we describe the lightweight, open-source COSORE (COntinuous SOil REspiration) database and software, that focuses on automated, continuous and long-term GHG flux datasets, and is intended to serve as a community resource for earth sciences, climate change syntheses and model evaluation. Contributed datasets are mapped to a single, consistent standard, with metadata on contributors, geographic location, measurement conditions and ancillary data. The design emphasizes the importance of reproducibility, scientific transparency and open access to data. While being oriented towards continuously measuredR(S), the database design accommodates other soil-atmosphere measurements (e.g. ecosystem respiration, chamber-measured net ecosystem exchange, methane fluxes) as well as experimental treatments (heterotrophic only, etc.). We give brief examples of the types of analyses possible using this new community resource and describe its accompanying R software package.
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Abstract
The influence of atmosphere pollution on human health is receiving more and more concerns as strengthened anthropogenic activity had brought excessive pollutant into the atmosphere. To date, the quantitative estimation about the contribution of atmosphere on the accumulation of heavy metal in the edible cereal parts induced by anthropogenic forcing is scarce. Taking the Yangtze River Delta area, China as an example, this study estimates quantitatively the influence of atmosphere on the concentration of heavy metal in the aboveground wheat tissues induced by anthropogenic industrial activity at the regional scale. The results show that the aboveground wheat tissues in the southern Yangtze River Delta area accumulated much more heavy metals than that in the northern area, although there is no significant difference in the geological and climate conditions, soil types, agricultural manages, wheat cultivar and soil heavy metals concentrations (even heavy metals concentrations in wheat mot) between the southern area and northern area. The mean concentrations of Pb, Zn, Cu and Cd in wheat grain in southern area have exceeded the thresholds of contamination levels. The present study suggests that the influence of atmosphere on the accumulation of Hg, Cd, Pb, Zn, Cu, Ni and Cr in the aboveground wheat tissues is greatly significant when high amounts of pollutant are measured in the atmosphere. Based on translocation coefficient of the element, it is estimated that atmospheric pollution induced by anthropogenic forcing might lead to the concentration of heavy metals in wheat straw and grain increase by approximately 100% and 354% (Hg), 64% and 293% (Pb), 122% and 160% (Cr), 50% and 38% (Cd) and 14% and 41% (Cu), respectively.
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Abstract
Trace elements play a crucial role in the growth and health of organisms. Imaging the distribution of trace elements in organisms at micron resolution scale can reveal the chemical form and transfer mechanism of trace elements in organisms and their influence on the growth of organisms. In the present study, we used a high-resolution secondary ion mass spectrometer (NanoSIMS) to image the trace elements zinc (Zn), iron (Fe), magnesium (Mg) and potassium (K) in the wheat grain and analyzed the chemical form of Zn. The NanoSIMS images indicate that the micro-distributions of Zn, Fe, Mg and K in the wheat grain are similar, especially for Zn and Fe, mostly in the phytate granules of the aleurone and closely associated with P and H-O. Besides being distributed in phytate granules, some or a small amount of Mg and K are also distributed in starch granules of the endosperm. The S and C-N distributions are very similar, mainly in the protein matrix of the endosperm and aleurone. P and H-O, rather than S and C-N, are the two dominant ligands to Zn, Fe, K and Mg in wheat grain. The dominant chemical form of Zn and Fe in the wheat grain is in the phytate, not the protein. The P is crucial to Zn, Fe, Mg and K accumulation in the wheat, and agricultural producers should pay special attention to adjust the application of P fertilizer to affect the concentrations of Zn in the crop. In situ imaging of NanoSIMS can elucidate the relations between trace elements in grain samples with clear visualization, and it also has great significance in chemical analysis, crop breeding and environmental monitoring.
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Abstract
The viscosity of iron alloy liquids is the key for the core dynamo and core-mantle differentiation of terrestrial bodies. Here we measured the viscosity of Fe-Ni-C liquids up to 7 GPa using the floating sphere viscometry method and up to 330 GPa using first-principles calculations. We found a viscosity increase at similar to 3-5 GPa, coincident with a structural transition in the liquids. After the transition, the viscosity reaches similar to 14-27 mPa center dot s, a factor of 2-4 higher than that of Fe and Fe-S liquids. Our computational results from 5 to 330 GPa also indicate a high viscosity of the Fe-Ni-C liquids. For a carbon-rich core in large terrestrial body, the level of turbulence in the outer core would be lessened approaching the inner core boundary. It is also anticipated that Fe-Ni-C liquids would percolate in Earth's deep silicate mantle at a much slower speed than Fe and Fe-S liquids.
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Abstract
Jovian planet formation has been shown to be strongly correlated with host-star metallicity, which is thought to be a proxy for disk solids. Observationally, previous works have indicated that Jovian planets preferentially form around stars with solar and supersolar metallicities. Given these findings, it is challenging to form planets within metal-poor environments, particularly for hot Jupiters that are thought to form via metallicity-dependent core accretion. Although previous studies have conducted planet searches for hot Jupiters around metal-poor stars, they have been limited due to small sample sizes, which are a result of a lack of high-quality data making hot-Jupiter occurrence within the metal-poor regime difficult to constrain until now. We use a large sample of halo stars observed by TESS to constrain the upper limit of hot-Jupiter occurrence within the metal-poor regime (-2.0 <= [Fe/H] <= -0.6). Placing the most stringent upper limit on hot-Jupiter occurrence, we find the mean 1 sigma upper limit to be 0.18% for radii 0.8-2 R (Jupiter) and periods 0.5-10 days. This result is consistent with previous predictions indicating that there exists a certain metallicity below which no planets can form.
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Abstract
Green Pea and Blueberry galaxies are well known for their compact size, low mass, strong emission lines, and analogs to high-z Ly alpha-emitting galaxies. In this study, 1547 strong [O iii] lambda 5007 emission-line compact galaxies with 1694 spectra are selected from LAMOST DR9 at the redshift range from 0.0 to 0.59. According to the redshift distribution, these samples can be separated into three groups: Blueberries, Green Peas, and Purple Grapes. Optical [Mg ii] lambda 2800 line feature, BPT diagram, multiwavelength spectral energy distribution (SED) fitting, mid-IR (MIR) color, and MIR variability are deployed to identify 23 active galactic nucleus candidates from these samples, which are excluded for the following star formation rate (SFR) discussions. We perform the multiwavelength SED fitting with GALEX UV and WISE MIR data. Color excess from the Balmer decrement shows that these strong [O iii] lambda 5007 emission-line compact galaxies are not highly reddened. The stellar mass of the galaxies is obtained by fitting LAMOST calibrated spectra with the emission lines masked. We find that the SFR is increasing with the increase of redshift, while for the sources within the same redshift bin the SFR increases with mass with a similar slope to the star-forming main sequence. These samples have a median metallicity of 12 + log(O/H) of 8.10. The metallicity increases with mass, and all the sources are below the mass-metallicity relation. The direct-derived T ( e )-based metallicity from the [O iii] lambda 4363 line agrees with the empirical N2-based empirical gas-phase metallicity. Moreover, these compact strong [O iii] lambda 5007 lines are mostly in a less dense environment.
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Abstract
The Legacy ExtraGalactic UV Survey (LEGUS) is a Cycle 21 Treasury program on the Hubble Space Telescope aimed at the investigation of star formation and its relation with galactic environment in nearby galaxies, from the scales of individual stars to those of similar to kiloparsec-size clustered structures. Five-band imaging from the nearultraviolet to the I band with the Wide-Field Camera 3 (WFC3), plus parallel optical imaging with the Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS), is being collected for selected pointings of 50 galaxies within the local 12 Mpc. The filters used for the observations with the WFC3 are F275W(lambda 2704 angstrom), F336W(lambda 3355 angstrom), F438W(lambda 4325 angstrom), F555W(lambda 5308 angstrom), and F814W(lambda 8024 angstrom); the parallel observations with the ACS use the filters F435W (lambda 4328 angstrom), F606W(lambda 5921 angstrom), and F814W(lambda 8057 angstrom). The multiband images are yielding accurate recent (less than or similar to 50 Myr) star formation histories from resolved massive stars and the extinction-corrected ages and masses of star clusters and associations. The extensive inventories of massive stars and clustered systems will be used to investigate the spatial and temporal evolution of star formation within galaxies. This will, in turn, inform theories of galaxy evolution and improve the understanding of the physical underpinning of the gas-star formation relation and the nature of star formation at high redshift. This paper describes the survey, its goals and observational strategy, and the initial scientific results. Because LEGUS will provide a reference survey and a foundation for future observations with the James Webb Space Telescope and with ALMA, a large number of data products are planned for delivery to the community.
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Abstract
Equimolar Tris (2-amino-2-hydroxymethyl-propane-1,3-diol) buffer prepared in artificial seawater media is a widely accepted pH standard for oceanographic pH measurements, though its change in pH over pressure is largely unknown. The change in volume (Delta V) of dissociation reactions can be used to estimate the effects of pressure on the dissociation constant of weak acid and bases. The Delta V of Tris in seawater media of salinity 35 (Delta V-Tris*) was determined between 10 and 30 degrees C using potentiometry. The potentiometric cell consisted of a modified high pressure tolerant Ion Sensitive Field Effect Transistor pH sensor and a Chloride-Ion Selective Electrode directly exposed to solution. The effects of pressure on the potentiometric cell were quantified in aqueous HCl solution prior to measurements in Tris buffer. The experimentally determined Delta V-Tris* were fitted to the equation Delta V-Tris*= 4528 +0.04912t where t is temperature in Celsius; the resultant fit agreed to experimental data within uncertainty of the measurements, which was estimated to be 0.9 cm(-3) mol(-1). Using the results presented here, change in pH of Tris buffer due to pressure can be constrained to better than 0.003 at 200 bar, and can be expressed as:
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Abstract
Compact groups (CGs) provide an environment in which interactions between galaxies and with the intra-group medium enable and accelerate galaxy transitions from actively star forming to quiescent. Galaxies in transition from active to quiescent can be selected, by their infrared (IR) colors, as canyon or infrared transition zone (IRTZ) galaxies. We used a sample of CG galaxies with IR data from the Wide Field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) allowing us to calculate the stellar mass and star formation rate (SFR) for each galaxy. Furthermore, we present new CO(1-0) data for 27 galaxies and collect data from the literature to calculate the molecular gas mass for a total sample of 130 galaxies. This data set allows us to study the difference in the molecular gas fraction (M-mol/M-*) and star formation efficiency (SFE = SFR/M-mol) between active, quiescent, and transitioning (i.e., canyon and IRTZ) galaxies. We find that transitioning galaxies have a mean molecular gas fraction and a mean SFE that are significantly lower than those of actively star-forming galaxies. The molecular gas fraction is higher than that of quiescent galaxies, whereas the SFE is similar. These results indicate that the transition from actively star-forming to quiescent in CG galaxies goes along with a loss of molecular gas, possibly due to tidal forces exerted from the neighboring galaxies or a decrease in the gas density. In addition, the remaining molecular gas loses its ability to form stars efficiently, possibly owing to turbulence perturbing the gas, as seen in other, well-studied examples such as Stephan's Quintet and HCG 57. Thus, the amount and properties of molecular gas play a crucial role in the environmentally driven transition of galaxies from actively star forming to quiescent.
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