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Aquatic deoxygenation as a planetary boundary and key regulator of Earth system stability

Nature Ecology & Evolution volume 8, pages 1400–1406 (2024)Cite this article

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Abstract

Planetary boundaries represent thresholds in major Earth system processes that are sensitive to human activity and control global-scale habitability and stability. These processes are interconnected such that movement of one planetary boundary process can alter the likelihood of crossing other boundaries. Here we argue that the observed deoxygenation of the Earth’s freshwater and marine ecosystems represents an additional planetary boundary process that is critical to the integrity of Earth’s ecological and social systems, and both regulates and responds to ongoing changes in other planetary boundary processes. Research on the rapid and ongoing deoxygenation of Earth’s aquatic habitats indicates that relevant, critical oxygen thresholds are being approached at rates comparable to other planetary boundary processes. Concerted global monitoring, research and policy efforts are needed to address the challenges brought on by rapid deoxygenation, and the expansion of the planetary boundaries framework to include deoxygenation as a boundary helps to focus those efforts.

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Fig. 1: How dissolved oxygen interacts with other planetary boundaries and major Earth system elements.
Fig. 2: Major drivers of deoxygenation in aquatic ecosystems.

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Acknowledgements

K.C.R. acknowledges support from US National Science Foundation (NSF) grant nos 2048031 and 1754265. E.M.F. acknowledges graduate support from the NSF GRFP (UCSD DGE-2038238), UC San Diego (PPPF) and the Aburto Lab at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, and postdoctoral support from UC Santa Cruz. S.R.C. acknowledges support from the North Temperate Lakes Long-Term Ecological Research programme from the NSF Cooperative Agreement no. DEB-2025982. S.C.D. acknowledges support from NSF grant no. IOS-2345023. V.C.G. and M.G. acknowledge support from the CE2COAST project funded by ANR (FR), BELSPO (BE), FCT (PT), IZM (LV), MI (IE), MIUR (IT), Rannis (IS), IRP MAST (Multiscale Adaptive Strategies) and RCN (NO) through the 2019 ‘Joint Transnational Call on Next Generation Climate Science in Europe for Oceans’ initiated by JPI Climate and JPI Oceans. V.C.G. also acknowledges support from the EU H2020 FutureMares project (Theme LC-CLA-06-2019, grant agreement no. 869300) and the Scientific Committee on Oceanic Research (SCOR) Working Group 155, funded by national SCOR committees and a grant to SCOR from the NSF (grant no. OCE-1840868). P.R.L. acknowledges support from the Canada Research Chairs programme and grants from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada. M.G. acknowledges support from the EU H2020 BRIDGE-BS project under grant agreement no. 101000240 and the EU HE NECCTON project under grant agreement no. 101081273. S.F.J. was supported by the Cornell Atkinson Center for Sustainability. S.F.J. was also partially supported by a Society of Science Postdoctoral Fellowship from the University of Notre Dame. L.A.L. acknowledges support from an NSF AccelNet Program award no. 2114717 via University of Texas subaward no. 308056-0001A and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science Competitive Research Program under award no. NA18NOS4780172. V.C.G., L.A.L., D.B., A.O., S.C. and M.G. acknowledge fruitful discussions around the topic of deoxygenation as a potential planetary boundary, which took place within the Global Ocean Oxygen Network Working Group being supported by IOC UNESCO.

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Author notes

  1. Stephen F. Jane

    Present address: Department of Biology, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, IN, USA

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biological Sciences, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY, USA

    Kevin C. Rose

  2. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY, USA

    Kevin C. Rose

  3. Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of California, Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz, CA, USA

    Erica M. Ferrer

  4. Center for Marine Biodiversity and Conservation, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA, USA

    Erica M. Ferrer & Lisa A. Levin

  5. Center for Limnology, University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI, USA

    Stephen R. Carpenter

  6. Departments of Microbiology and Immunology and Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada

    Sean A. Crowe

  7. Department of Biology, University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, North Dartmouth, MA, USA

    Sarah C. Donelan

  8. CNRS—Laboratoire d’Etudes en Géophysique et Océanographie Spatiales, Toulouse, France

    Véronique C. Garçon

  9. CNRS - Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris, Paris, France

    Véronique C. Garçon

  10. MAST-FOCUS, Department of Astrophysics, Geophysics and Oceanography, University of Liège, Liège, Belgium

    Marilaure Grégoire

  11. Department of Natural Resources and the Environment, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA

    Stephen F. Jane

  12. Cornell Atkinson Center for Sustainability, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA

    Stephen F. Jane

  13. Institute of Environmental Change and Society, University of Regina, Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada

    Peter R. Leavitt

  14. GEOMAR Helmholtz-Centre for Ocean Research Kiel, Kiel, Germany

    Andreas Oschlies

  15. Smithsonian Environmental Research Center, Edgewater, MD, USA

    Denise Breitburg

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Contributions

All authors (K.C.R., E.M.F., S.R.C., S.C., S.C.D., V.C.G., M.G., S.F.J., P.R.L., L.A.L., A.O. and D.B.) contributed to the writing and editing of this manuscript.

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Correspondence to Kevin C. Rose.

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Rose, K.C., Ferrer, E.M., Carpenter, S.R. et al. Aquatic deoxygenation as a planetary boundary and key regulator of Earth system stability. Nat Ecol Evol 8, 1400–1406 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-024-02448-y

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