New paper on organic matter recycling in the Baltic Sea published

We are excited to share that BioEcoOcean post-doctoral researcher Aleksandra Cherkasheva (IO PAN) is a co-author of a just published article on mapping the release of organic matter fluxes from sediments, which contributes to a better understanding of carbon cycling in the Baltic Sea.

One of the objectives of the BioEcoOcean project is to proceed in developing the Marine Organic Carbon Atlas, which would provide new data and information on biological carbon pump processes which are not yet well understood, documented and modelled. The release of dissolved organic matter (DOM) from sediments, which is then further used by bacteria (see purple bold arrow in the figure below), is an important component of carbon recycling - one process which remains understudied.

By studying the pore water DOM quality and its release from shallow sediments of the central and southern Baltic Sea, Alexandra Loginova (IO PAN) and colleagues analyzed spatial variability of DOM fluxes from sediments, thus expanding our understanding of carbon recycling mechanisms in this region.

The full paper is available in open-access here: Loginova AN, Wünsch UJ, Zabłocka M, Cherkasheva A, Szymczycha B, Kuliński K, Winogradow A and Kowalczuk P (2024) Qualitative variability of dissolved organic matter in the Baltic Sea sediments apparent from fluxes and optical properties. Front. Mar. Sci. 11:1433199. doi: 10.3389/fmars.2024.1433199