Reviews and Syntheses: Responses of coccolithophores to ocean acidification: a meta-analysis
By Judith Meyer, U. Riebesell. 2015
180 citations recorded by the source corpus.
Concerning their sensitivity to ocean acidification, coccolithophores, a group of calcifying single-celled phytoplankton, are one of the best-studied groups of marine organisms. However, in spite of the large number of studies investigating coccolithophore physiological responses to ocean acidification, uncertainties still remain due to variable and partly contradictory results. In the present study we have used all existing data in a meta-analysis to estimate the effect size of future pCO2 changes on the rates of calcification and photosynthesis and the ratio of particulate inorganic to organic carbon (PIC / POC) in different coccolithophore species. Our results indicate that ocean acidification has a negative effect on calcification and the cellular PIC / POC ratio in the two most abundant coccolithophore species: Emiliania huxleyi and Gephyrocapsa oceanica. In contrast, the more heavily calcified species Coccolithus braarudii did not show a distinct response when exposed to elevated pCO2/reduced pH. Photosynthesis in Gephyrocapsa oceanica was positively affected by high CO2, while no effect was observed for the other coccolithophore species. There was no indication that the method of carbonate chemistry manipulation was responsible for the inconsistent results regarding observed responses in calcification and the PIC / POC ratio. The perturbation method, however, appears to affect photosynthesis, as responses varied significantly between total alkalinity (TA) and dissolved inorganic carbon (DIC) manipulations. These results emphasize that coccolithophore species respond differently to ocean acidification, both in terms of calcification and photosynthesis. Where negative effects occur, they become evident at CO2 levels in the range projected for this century in the case of unabated CO2 emissions. As the data sets used in this meta-analysis do not account for adaptive responses, ecological fitness and ecosystem interactions, the question remains as to how these physiological responses play out in the natural environment.
Subfields: Oceanography
View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/1b20ec202bd8e6fe2c0fca4d2c65483518bcbb4a
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In Oceanography
Citations in the corpus
- Measures and Approaches in Trait-Based Phytoplankton Community Ecology – From Freshwater to Marine Ecosystems (2019, unknown): “The response of coccolithophores to declining pH-levels has been shown to be strain-specific (Müller et al., 2015; Rickaby et al., 2016) and varies at different times scales (Meyer and Riebesell, 2015; Schlüter et al., 2016).”
- Ocean acidification and marine microorganisms : responses and consequences (2015, result): “Emiliania huxleyi and Gephyrocapsa oceanica (Meyer and Riebesell, 2015; Ridgwell et al., 2009).”