Benthic Coral Reef Calcium Carbonate Dissolution in an Acidifying Ocean

Authors

Bradley D. Eyre, Southern Cross University - Lismore, Australia
Andreas J. Andersson, University of California - San Diego
Tyler Cyronak, Southern Cross University - Lismore, AustraliaFollow

ORCID

0000-0003-3556-7616

Document Type

Article

Publication Title

Nature Climate Change

ISSN

1758-678X

Publication Date

11-2014

Abstract

Changes in CaCO₃ dissolution due to ocean acidification are potentially more important than changes in calcification to the future accretion and survival of coral reef ecosystems. As most CaCO₃ in coral reefs is stored in old permeable sediments, increasing sediment dissolution due to ocean acidification will result in reef loss even if calcification remains unchanged. Previous studies indicate that CaCO₃ dissolution could be more sensitive to ocean acidification than calcification by reef organisms. Observed changes in net ecosystem calcification owing to ocean acidification could therefore be due mainly to increased dissolution rather than decreased calcification. In addition, biologically mediated calcification could potentially adapt, at least partially, to future ocean acidification, while dissolution, which is mostly a geochemical response to changes in seawater chemistry, will not adapt. Here, we review the current knowledge of shallow-water CaCO₃ dissolution and demonstrate that dissolution in the context of ocean acidification has been largely overlooked compared with calcification.

DOI

10.1038/nclimate2380

Volume

4

Issue

11

First Page

969

Last Page

976

Comments

©2014 Macmillan Publishers Limited. All rights reserved

Additional Comments

ARC grant #s: DP110103638, LP100200732; NSF grant #: 12-55042

NSUWorks Citation

Bradley D. Eyre, Andreas J. Andersson, and Tyler Cyronak. 2014. Benthic Coral Reef Calcium Carbonate Dissolution in an Acidifying Ocean .Nature Climate Change , (11) : 969 -976. https://nsuworks.nova.edu/occ_facarticles/1021.