Next-century ocean acidification and warming both reduce calcification rate, but only acidification alters skeletal morphology of reef-building coral Siderastrea siderea

Details

• Journal Title:
  Scientific Reports
• Personal Author:
  Horvath, Kimmaree M. ; Castillo, Karl D. ; Armstrong, Pualani ; Westfield, Isaac T. ; Courtney, Travis ; Ries, Justin B.
• NOAA Program & Office:
  OAR (Oceanic and Atmospheric Research)
• Description:
  Atmospheric pCO(2) is predicted to rise from 400 to 900 ppm by year 2100, causing seawater temperature to increase by 1-4 degrees C and pH to decrease by 0.1-0.3. Sixty-day experiments were conducted to investigate the independent and combined impacts of acidification (pCO(2) = 424-426, 888-940 ppm-v) and warming (T = 28, 32 degrees C) on calcification rate and skeletal morphology of the abundant and widespread Caribbean reef-building scleractinian coral Siderastrea siderea. Hierarchical linear mixed-effects modelling reveals that coral calcification rate was negatively impacted by both warming and acidification, with their combined effects yielding the most deleterious impact. Negative effects of warming (32 degrees C/424 ppm-v) and high-temperature acidification (32 degrees C/940 ppm-v) on calcification rate were apparent across both 30-day intervals of the experiment, while effects of low-temperature acidification (28 degrees C/888 ppm-v) were not apparent until the second 30-day interval-indicating delayed onset of acidification effects at lower temperatures. Notably, two measures of coral skeletal morphology-corallite height and corallite infilling-were negatively impacted by next-century acidification, but not by next-century warming. Therefore, while next-century ocean acidification and warming will reduce the rate at which corals build their skeletons, next-century acidification will also modify the morphology and, potentially, function of coral skeletons.
• Keywords:
  Coral Reefs And Islands Marine Chemistry Ocean Acidification Coral Reefs And Islands Marine Chemistry Ocean Acidification
• Source:
  Scientific Reports 6 (29613)
• DOI:
  https://doi.org/10.1038/srep29613
• Pubmed Central ID:
  PMC4965865
• Document Type:
  Journal Article
• Funding:
  Grant no. NA13OAR4310186
• Rights Information:
  CC BY
• Compliance:
  PMC
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:6d7373e219850363cdf04f9bfbbfb64455e7b3c9ff32a24870eb5caee0007e29a06c35905cc7e67953ae6b39d1044652ec42197444e3de33c70163fad2680b8d
• Download URL:
  https://repository.library.noaa.gov/view/noaa/24081/noaa_24081_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 1.56 MB ]