Chen Quanrui, Tang Kai, Zhai Weidong, Zhu Zhuoyi, Terence Yang Jin-Yu, He Zhili, Li Meng, Kao Shuh-Ji, Yang Jun, Zheng Qiang, Lønborg Christian, Thomas Helmuth, Jiao Nianzhi
Innovation Research Center for Carbon Neutralization, State Key Laboratory of Marine Environmental Science, Fujian Key Laboratory of Marine Carbon Sequestration, College of Ocean and Earth Sciences, Xiamen University, Xiamen 361005, China.
Frontier Research Center, Southern Marine Science and Engineering Guangdong Laboratory (Zhuhai), Zhuhai 519082, China.
iScience. 2025 Jun 5;28(7):112826. doi: 10.1016/j.isci.2025.112826. eCollection 2025 Jul 18.
Ocean deoxygenation is impacting and will also in the future impact fundamental biogeochemical cycles. This review explores the ecological functions of microbes under hypoxic and anoxic conditions, emphasizing their critical roles in carbon source-sink dynamics. We examine microbial ecosystems in both open-ocean oxygen minimum zones and China's coastal hypoxic areas, highlighting the microbial contributions to deoxygenation driven processes. We also explore how organic carbon cycling driven by microbial heterotrophic and autotrophic metabolisms change across oxygen gradients. Furthermore, this review elucidates the interconnected cycling of carbon, nitrogen, sulfur, and phosphorus, which regulate organic matter consumption and/or storage under deoxygenation, and alters the elemental composition of organic matter. Our study highlights the importance of microbial processes in regulating carbon cycle under ocean deoxygenation, emphasizing the dual role of hypoxic zones as transient sources and long-term sinks of organic carbon. Lastly, we highlight current challenges in addressing ocean deoxygenation and provide avenues for future research.
海洋脱氧正在影响且未来也将继续影响基本的生物地球化学循环。本综述探讨了缺氧和无氧条件下微生物的生态功能，强调了它们在碳源 - 汇动态中的关键作用。我们研究了大洋氧含量极小值区和中国沿海缺氧区域的微生物生态系统，突出了微生物对脱氧驱动过程的贡献。我们还探讨了由微生物异养和自养代谢驱动的有机碳循环如何随氧梯度变化。此外，本综述阐明了碳、氮、硫和磷的相互关联循环，这些循环在脱氧条件下调节有机物的消耗和/或储存，并改变有机物的元素组成。我们的研究强调了微生物过程在调节海洋脱氧下碳循环中的重要性，强调了缺氧区作为有机碳的短暂来源和长期汇的双重作用。最后，我们突出了应对海洋脱氧目前面临的挑战，并提供了未来研究的途径。
