Seawater carbonate chemistry and biological processes during experiments with temperate coral Cladocora caespitosa, 2010

DOI

Atmospheric CO2 partial pressure (pCO2) is expected to increase to 700 µatm or more by the end of the present century. Anthropogenic CO2 is absorbed by the oceans, leading to decreases in pH and the CaCO3 saturation state of the seawater. Elevated pCO2 was shown to drastically decrease calcification rates in tropical zooxanthellate corals. Here we show, using the Mediterranean zooxanthellate coral Cladocora caespitosa, that an increase in pCO2, in the range predicted for 2100, does not reduce its calcification rate. Therefore, the conventional belief that calcification rates will be affected by ocean acidification may not be widespread in temperate corals. Seasonal change in temperature is the predominant factor controlling photosynthesis, respiration, calcification and symbiont density. An increase in pCO2, alone or in combination with elevated temperature, had no significant effect on photosynthesis, photosynthetic efficiency and calcification. The lack of sensitivity C. caespitosa to elevated pCO2 might be due to its slow growth rates, which seem to be more dependent on temperature than on the saturation state of calcium carbonate in the range projected for the end of the century.

Identifier
DOI https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.754807
Related Identifier https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-7-289-2010
Metadata Access https://ws.pangaea.de/oai/provider?verb=GetRecord&metadataPrefix=datacite4&identifier=oai:pangaea.de:doi:10.1594/PANGAEA.754807
Provenance
Creator Rodolfo-Metalpa, Riccardo; Martin, Sophie ORCID logo; Ferrier-Pagès, Christine ORCID logo; Gattuso, Jean-Pierre ORCID logo
Publisher PANGAEA
Contributor Nisumaa, Anne-Marin
Publication Year 2010
Funding Reference Seventh Framework Programme https://doi.org/10.13039/100011102 Crossref Funder ID 211384 https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/211384 European Project on Ocean Acidification
Rights Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported; https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/
OpenAccess true
Representation
Resource Type Dataset
Format text/tab-separated-values
Size 12601 data points
Discipline Earth System Research
Temporal Coverage Begin 2006-07-19T12:00:00Z
Temporal Coverage End 2007-07-31T12:00:00Z