Net Loss of CaCO 3 from a subtropical calcifying community due to seawater acidification: mesocosm-scale experimental evidence

By Andreas J. Andersson, I. B. Kuffner, F. Mackenzie, P. Jokiel, K. Rodgers, A. Tan. 2009

177 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Abstract. Acidification of seawater owing to oceanic uptake of atmospheric CO2 originating from human activities such as burning of fossil fuels and land-use changes has raised serious concerns regarding its adverse effects on corals and calcifying communities. Here we demonstrate a net loss of calcium carbonate (CaCO3) material as a result of decreased calcification and increased carbonate dissolution from replicated subtropical coral reef communities (n=3) incubated in continuous-flow mesocosms subject to future seawater conditions. The calcifying community was dominated by the coral Montipora capitata. Daily average community calcification or Net Ecosystem Calcification (NEC=CaCO3 production – dissolution) was positive at 3.3 mmol CaCO3 m−2 h−1 under ambient seawater pCO2 conditions as opposed to negative at −0.04 mmol CaCO3 m−2 h−1 under seawater conditions of double the ambient pCO2. These experimental results provide support for the conclusion that some net calcifying communities could become subject to net dissolution in response to anthropogenic ocean acidification within this century. Nevertheless, individual corals remained healthy, actively calcified (albeit slower than at present rates), and deposited significant amounts of CaCO3 under the prevailing experimental seawater conditions of elevated pCO2.

Subfields: Ecology, Global and Planetary Change, Oceanography

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/7a7da8f78200ac7e9d6f8181db0d33c04707072c

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Citations in the corpus

The Omega Myth: What Really Drives Lower Calcification Rates in an Acidifying Ocean (2016, background): “Other recent work is beginning to highlight the sensitivity of CaCO3 dissolution to OA, which may pose a more serious threat to coral reef ecosystems than changes in calcification (Andersson et al., 2009; Cyronak et al., 2013a; Eyre et al., 2014).”
Calcification and organic production on a Hawaiian coral reef (2011, unknown): “Another mesocosm study performed at HIMB had diverse communities with many coral reef organisms and similar coral cover and Ωarag levels as on the barrier reef, but calcification rates were much lower than on the barrier reef (Andersson et al., 2009).”
Bioerosion: the other ocean acidification problem: Towards a Broader Perspective on Ocean Acidification Research Part 2 A special issue of the ICES Journal of Marine Science (2017, background): “Bioerosion facilitates passive dissolution by opening new surfaces to the environment, and by creating irregularities, cavities and sediments, thus enlarging the surface area exposed to the surrounding water (e.g. Craig et al., 1969; Hutchings, 2008; Andersson et al., 2009).”