A new study shows that Saharan dust carries bacteria across the Atlantic and alters the microbiome over the rainforest. It also carries potentially harmful endotoxins into the region, causing their concentration to triple.
In a new study, Johanna Schüttler and her colleagues explored how soil in the Amazon rainforest releases or takes up BVOC across different seasons. They focused on key reactive compounds like isoprene, monoterpenes, sesquiterpenes, and two isoprene oxidation products: methacrolein and methyl vinyl ketone.
A new study reveals that leaf turnover strategies and heat stress in Amazonian trees affect atmospheric chemistry and carbon cycling: trees, and in particular brevideciduous trees, emit more and more carbon-rich volatile organic compounds as temperatures rise.
The El Niño drought and heat suppress the capacity of the Amazon rainforest soil to absorb isoprene by a factor of four, while boosting its amount around the forest canopy.
During the 2023–2024 El Niño – the most severe drought ever recorded in the Amazon basin – tree emissions of sesquiterpenes surged. Unexpected emissions of sesquiterpene alcohols in the wet season after the drought, suggesting the forest’s stress-defense metabolism stays active long after the immediate stress has passed.
