Briefing

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Source: Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans

Submarine canyons around Antarctica tend to have less sea ice, higher sea surface temperatures, and more biomass such as phytoplankton blooms than the shelves they cut into. Phytoplankton blooms feed Antarctic krill, making these canyons an attractive feeding ground for larger predators such as penguins, who make permanent homes for foraging and breeding on the shores surrounding submarine canyons.

Previous studies suggested that, as on a farm, the phytoplankton blooms that attract predators were locally grown, supported by the upwelling of nutrient-rich water. But newer research shows that water moves through the canyon more quickly than phytoplankton can accumulate, so it is likely that currents transport most of the surface biomass into the canyon from other parts of the ocean. Canyons therefore act more like biomass supermarkets, to which food is delivered, than like farms.

McKee et al. examined to what degree phytoplankton grow locally in Palmer Deep canyon on the western Antarctic Peninsula versus being transported in by ocean currents. To do so, they used high-frequency radar to measure ocean currents and satellite imagery taken hours to days apart to measure levels of surface chlorophyll, a proxy for phytoplankton.

The results showed that both processes were occurring. Ocean currents appeared to bring in much of the phytoplankton that flowed on the western side of the canyon, making it more like a supermarket, the researchers write. In contrast, more phytoplankton seem to be growing in place on the eastern flank, making it more like a farm.

The authors also examined how the movement of water correlated to plankton growth, by tracking chlorophyll levels in moving parcels of water. In general, they found that water parcels that saw an increase in phytoplankton levels as they moved through the canyon tended to exhibit more clockwise motion, whereas parcels that saw decreasing phytoplankton levels showed more counterclockwise rotation. (Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans, https://doi.org/10.1029/2024JC022101, 2025)

—Rebecca Owen (@beccapox.bsky.social), Science Writer

Citation: Owen, R. (2025), Where do Antarctic submarine canyons get their marine life?, Eos, 106, https://doi.org/10.1029/2025EO250224. Published on 18 June 2025.

Text © 2025. AGU. CC BY-NC-ND 3.0
Except where otherwise noted, images are subject to copyright. Any reuse without express permission from the copyright owner is prohibited.

Boreal peatlands in Canada provide crucial ecosystem services, from flood mitigation and water purification to storing colossal amounts of carbon and providing a habitat for species such as caribou.

Over the past several decades, more than 36,000 hectares of well pads have been constructed to house oil and gas drilling platforms in these landscapes, destroying the underlying vegetation and disrupting the flow of water through the ground.

“We want to get as close to the original state as is possible and realistic.”

Once drilling operations are finished, operators are required to return pads to a state similar to that before construction. Though restoration efforts have historically focused on tree planting, reintroducing the right mosses is crucial for restoring functional peatlands. A study in Ecological Engineering outlines a new approach to reintroduce these keystone plant species, tested for the first time at the scale of a full well pad in Alberta, Canada.

“We want to get as close to the original state as is possible and realistic, given the very long time scales that peatlands develop over,” said Murdoch McKinnon, a graduate student at the University of Waterloo and lead author of the study.

The challenge is providing the right hydrological conditions for mosses to thrive.

Removing Fill

Well pads are constructed by heaping crushed mineral fill onto a section of peat to create a harder level surface.

Traditionally, researchers in the region have reintroduced moss by first completely removing the fill, which lowers the surface so that it is closer to the water table. In some cases, they would bury some of the fill under the newly exposed peat, a technique referred to as inversion.

This process has been successful in establishing the Sphagnum mosses typical of bogs, which have acidic soil that is low in nutrients. It’s been less successful in reintroducing the Bryopsida mosses characteristic of fens, the nutrient-rich wetlands that make up almost two thirds of peatlands in Canada’s Western Boreal Plain.

“I think it’s a good approach, but maybe the surface of the pad was not low enough to have flowing water, which you need in a fen.”

To reestablish a moss community that could eventually turn into a fen, the team left some of the fill on the surface, which provided the minerals that Bryopsida mosses rely on for growth. The team then roughed up the surface with an excavator to create different microsites, which promotes species diversity.

After introducing mosses from a nearby donor fen and closely monitoring the site for two growing seasons, researchers found that conditions for the reestablishment of Bryopsida mosses were best when the water table was within 6 centimeters (2 inches) of the surface. That was often the case along the edges of the pad that received water from the adjacent peatland, whereas the mosses in the interior of the pad struggled with drier conditions.

“I think it’s a good approach, but maybe the surface of the pad was not low enough to have flowing water, which you need in a fen,” said Line Rochefort, an expert in peatland restoration at Université Laval in Quebec who was not involved in the study.

“Without addressing that, it’s hard to introduce and establish peatland vegetation on mineral substrate,” said Bin Xu, a peatland ecologist at the Northern Alberta Institute of Technology (NAIT) who worked on the project. “On the flip side, when you do have good hydrobiological conditions, it’s really easy to support peat-forming vegetation, which is encouraging.”

An important takeaway from the study is the importance of decompacting the surface by roughing it up to allow for not only hydrological flow across the pad but also the natural vertical fluctuation of the water table, Xu said.

He and colleagues at NAIT have now applied these lessons to three additional well pads in Alberta, and industry experts have used a similar approach on around a dozen more, Xu said. “Through informing policy and sharing the learnings with industry, we can together address the need to reclaim well pads built in peatland across the province.”

—Kaja Šeruga, Science Writer

Citation: Šeruga, K. (2025), Surface conditions affect how mosses take to former well pads in Canada’s boreal fens, Eos, 106, https://doi.org/10.1029/2025EO250227. Published on 18 June 2025.

Text © 2025. The authors. CC BY-NC-ND 3.0
Except where otherwise noted, images are subject to copyright. Any reuse without express permission from the copyright owner is prohibited.

Climate change will benefit basking sharks in the UK but creatures like the longest living animal may struggle.

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launched 28 Starlink internet satellites into low Earth orbit from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida on Wednesday, June 18, 2025.

The Vera C. Rubin Observatory is releasing its first images on 23 June, showing us galaxies as we’ve never seen them before. Here’s how you can join a party to see those shots in full definition