ArticleNature communications2023
What the geological past can tell us about the future of the ocean's twilight zone.
Article in Nature communications, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 6 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Who cites it
6 citing papers in PubMed.
- Microbial metabolism amplified warming in three Phanerozoic hyperthermal events.Nature communications · 2025Article
- Regional restructuring in planktic foraminifera communities through Pliocene-early Pleistocene climate variability.Nature communications · 2025Article
- Opportunities for Earth Observation to Inform Risk Management for Ocean Tipping Points.Surveys in geophysics · 2025Review
- Deep-pelagic fishes: Demographic instability in a stable environment.Ecology and evolution · 2024Article
- Article
- Earth beyond six of nine planetary boundaries.Science advances · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
7 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Paleontological reconstructions of plankton community structure during warm periods of the Cenozoic (last 66 million years) reveal that deep-dwelling 'twilight zone' (200-1000 m) plankton were less abundant and diverse, and lived much closer to the surface, than in colder, more recent climates. We suggest that this is a consequence of temperature's role in controlling the rate that sinking organic matter is broken down and metabolized by bacteria, a process that occurs faster at warmer temperatures. In a warmer ocean, a smaller fraction of organic matter reaches the ocean interior, affecting food supply and dissolved oxygen availability at depth. Using an Earth system model that has been evaluated against paleo observations, we illustrate how anthropogenic warming may impact future carbon cycling and twilight zone ecology. Our findings suggest that significant changes are already underway, and without strong emissions mitigation, widespread ecological disruption in the twilight zone is likely by 2100, with effects spanning millennia thereafter.
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Registered trials
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