A group of scientists has put forth a proposal for monitoring global changes in biodiversity. This proposal will be published in the scientific journal Science today. It will be presented at a conference in Bonn at the end of January. Rob Jongman from Alterra Wageningen UR and Carlo Heip from the Royal Dutch Institute for Sea Research have contributed to this proposal.

Northwest Africa and Southeast Australia are regions which are particularly vulnerable to climate change. In her thesis, Raquel Lopes dos Santos of the Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research, investigate organic compounds in marine sediment cores, in order to reconstruct past environmental conditions in these areas. She found that vegetation changes were large and abrupt over the past 150,000 years in these regions and were caused by climate change as well as indirectly by humans. Lopes dos Santos will defend her thesis at the Utrecht University, on 17 December, 2012.

“Organic matter will be  consumed by the ocean floor organisms if the ‘quality’ is good enough”, stated Lara Pozzato in her PhD Thesis. The quality is more important than, for exemple, the amount of oxygen in the environment. Pozzato studied the interactions among organic matter and organisms at sea floors in different settings. She will defend her PhD thesis on November 16, at the Utrecht University.

The amount of dissolved iron in the surface water of some parts of the Antarctic Ocean is so small that it limits algal growth. In the Arctic Ocean, iron concentrations are higher due to the influence of rivers. Maarten Klunder measured iron concentrations in various parts and at various depths of the Arctic Ocean. In addition, he ascertained where the iron came from. On 5 October 2012, Klunder will defend his PhD thesis on this research project at the University of Groningen.