Reduced calcification and lack of acclimatization by coral colonies growing in areas of persistent natural acidification

As the surface ocean equilibrates with rising atmospheric CO2, the pH of surface seawater is decreasing with potentially negative impacts on coral calcification. A critical question is whether corals will be able to adapt or acclimate to these changes in seawater chemistry. We use high precision CT scanning of skeletal cores of Porites astreoides, an important Caribbean reef-building coral, to show that calcification rates decrease significantly along a natural gradient in pH and aragonite saturation (Omega arag). This decrease is accompanied by an increase in skeletal erosion and predation by boring organisms. The degree of sensitivity to reduced Oarag measured on our field corals is consistent with that exhibited by the same species in laboratory CO2 manipulation experiments. We conclude that the Porites corals at our field site were not able to acclimatize enough to prevent the impacts of local ocean acidification on their skeletal growth and development, despite spending their entire lifespan in low pH, low Omega arag seawater.

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Crook, Elizabeth Derse, Cohen, Anne L, Rebolledo-Vieyra, Mario, Hernandez, Laura, Paytan, Adina (2013). Dataset: Reduced calcification and lack of acclimatization by coral colonies growing in areas of persistent natural acidification. https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.831619

DOI retrieved: 2013

Additional Info

Field Value
Imported on November 30, 2024
Last update November 30, 2024
License CC-BY-3.0
Source https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.831619
Author Crook, Elizabeth Derse
Given Name Elizabeth Derse
Family Name Crook
More Authors
Cohen, Anne L
Rebolledo-Vieyra, Mario
Hernandez, Laura
Paytan, Adina
Source Creation 2013
Publication Year 2013
Resource Type text/tab-separated-values - filename: Crook_2013
Subject Areas
Name: BiologicalClassification

Name: Chemistry

Related Identifiers
Title: Reduced calcification and lack of acclimatization by coral colonies growing in areas of persistent natural acidification
Identifier: https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1301589110
Type: DOI
Relation: IsSupplementTo
Year: 2013
Source: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Authors: Crook Elizabeth Derse , Cohen Anne L , Rebolledo-Vieyra Mario , Hernandez Laura , Paytan Adina .

Title: seacarb: seawater carbonate chemistry with R. R package version 2.4
Identifier: https://cran.r-project.org/package=seacarb
Type: DOI
Relation: References
Year: 2011
Authors: Lavigne Héloïse , Gattuso Jean-Pierre .