Effects of the pH/ p CO 2 control method on medium chemistry and phytoplankton growth

By D. Shi, Yan Xu, François M. M. Morel. 2009

185 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Abstract. The control of key chemical parameters in phytoplankton cultures, such as pCO2, pH and Ω (the saturation state of calcium carbonate), is made difficult by the interdependence of these parameters and by the changes resulting from the growth of the organisms, such as CO2 fixation, nutrient uptake and, for coccolithophores, calcite precipitation. Even in cultures where pCO2 or pH is maintained constant, other chemical parameters change substantially at high cell densities. Experimentally we observed that various methods of adjustment of pCO2/pH – acid or base addition, use of buffers or pH-stats, or bubbling of CO2-enriched air – can be used, the choice of one or the other depending on the goals of the experiments. At seawater pH, we measured the same growth rates in cultures of the diatom Thalassiosira weissflogii where the pCO2/pH was controlled by these different methods. The pH/pCO2 control method also did not affect the rates of growth or calcification of the coccolithophore Emiliania huxleyi at seawater pH. At lower pH/higher pCO2, in the E. huxleyi strain PLY M219, we observed increases in rates of carbon fixation and calcification per cell, along with a slight increase in growth rate, except in bubbled cultures. In our hands, the bubbling of cultures seemed to induce more variable results than other methods of pCO2/pH control. While highly convenient, the addition of pH buffers to the medium apparently induces changes in trace metal availability and cannot be used under trace metal-limiting conditions.

Subfields: Global and Planetary Change, Oceanography

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/a5690eaec9452a965523e44971683055056c0599

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In Global and Planetary Change

1. U. Riebesell
2. J. Raven
3. K. Crawfurd
4. G. Singh
5. K. Kroeker
6. R. Kordas
7. R. Crim
8. Judith Meyer

In Oceanography

1. U. Riebesell
2. J. Raven
3. K. Crawfurd
4. B. Rost
5. R. Kordas
6. K. Kroeker
7. A. Engel
8. R. Crim

Citations in the corpus

• Environmental controls on coccolithophore calcification (2012, methodology): “Hoppe et al. (2011) tested the strain previously examined by Iglesias-Rodriguez et al. (2008a) and Shi et al. (2009) and, as indicated above, found somewhat different results.”
• Bioassays, batch culture and chemostat experimentation, Approaches and tools to manipulate the carbonate chemistry (2010, background): “However, seawater aeration by bubbling may lead to diffi culties in phytoplankton cultures (Shi et al., 2009).”
• Meta-analysis reveals negative yet variable effects of ocean acidification on marine organisms. (2010, methodology): “…reviews of methodology that indicate the speciation of carbonate parameters is very similar between both DIC addition at constant TA and manipulation of TA at constant DIC for moderate pCO2 levels (c. 700 p.p.m.) (Ridgewell et al. 2009; Schulz et al. 2009; Shi et al. 2009; Gattuso et al. 2010).”
• Molecular Mechanisms Underlying Calcification in Coccolithophores (2010, background): “huxleyi by Shi et al. (2009) when calculated on a per cell basis.”