Antagonistic Effects of Ocean Acidification and Rising Sea Surface Temperature on the Dissolution of Coral Reef Carbonate Sediments

Authors

Daniel Trnovsky, Southern Cross University - Lismore, Australia
Laura Stoltenberg, Southern Cross University - Lismore, Australia
Tyler Cyronak, University of California - San DiegoFollow
Bradley D. Eyre, Southern Cross University - Lismore, Australia

ORCID

0000-0003-3556-7616

Document Type

Article

Publication Title

Frontiers in Marine Science

ISSN

2296-7745

Publication Date

11-2-2016

Keywords

Sediment, Calcium carbonate, Dissolution, Ocean acidification, Sea surface temperature

Abstract

Increasing atmospheric CO₂ is raising sea surface temperature (SST) and increasing seawater CO₂ concentrations, resulting in a lower oceanic pH (ocean acidification; OA), which is expected to reduce the accretion of coral reef ecosystems. Although sediments comprise most of the calcium carbonate (CaCO₃) within coral reefs, no in situ studies have looked at the combined effects of increased SST and OA on the dissolution of coral reef CaCO₃ sediments. In situ benthic chamber incubations were used to measure dissolution rates in permeable CaCO₃ sands under future OA and SST scenarios in a coral reef lagoon on Australia's Great Barrier Reef (Heron Island). End of century (2100) simulations (temperature +2.7°C and pH −0.3) shifted carbonate sediments from net precipitating to net dissolving. Warming increased the rate of benthic respiration (R) by 29% per 1°C and lowered the ratio of productivity to respiration (P/R; ΔP/R = −0.23), which increased the rate of CaCO₃ sediment dissolution (average net increase of 18.9 mmol CaCO₃ m⁻² d⁻¹ for business as usual scenarios). This is most likely due to the influence of warming on benthic P/R which, in turn, was an important control on sediment dissolution through the respiratory production of CO₂. The effect of increasing CO₂ on CaCO₃ sediment dissolution (average net increase of 6.5 mmol CaCO₃ m⁻² d⁻¹ for business as usual scenarios) was significantly less than the effect of warming. However, the combined effect of increasing both SST and pCO₂ on CaCO₃ sediment dissolution was non-additive (average net increase of 5.6 mmol CaCO3 m⁻² d⁻¹) due to the different responses of the benthic community. This study highlights that benthic biogeochemical processes, such as metabolism and associated CaCO₃ sediment dissolution respond rapidly to changes in SST and OA, and that the response to multiple environmental changes are not necessarily additive.

DOI

10.3389/fmars.2016.00211

Volume

3

Issue

211

First Page

1

Last Page

11

Comments

Copyright © 2016 Trnovsky, Stoltenberg, Cyronak and Eyre. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

Additional Comments

ARC Discovery grant #: DP150102092

NSUWorks Citation

Daniel Trnovsky, Laura Stoltenberg, Tyler Cyronak, and Bradley D. Eyre. 2016. Antagonistic Effects of Ocean Acidification and Rising Sea Surface Temperature on the Dissolution of Coral Reef Carbonate Sediments .Frontiers in Marine Science , (211) : 1 -11. https://nsuworks.nova.edu/occ_facarticles/1026.