Marine & Environmental Sciences Faculty Articles
ORCID
0000-0003-3556-7616
Document Type
Article
Publication Title
PLoS ONE
ISSN
1932-6203
Publication Date
1-9-2018
Keywords
Coral reefs, Sea water, Calcification, Marine ecology, Carbonates, Marine chemistry, Ocean acidification, Biogeochemistry
Abstract
Worldwide, coral reef ecosystems are experiencing increasing pressure from a variety of anthropogenic perturbations including ocean warming and acidification, increased sedimentation, eutrophication, and overfishing, which could shift reefs to a condition of net calcium carbonate (CaCO3) dissolution and erosion. Herein, we determine the net calcification potential and the relative balance of net organic carbon metabolism (net community production; NCP) and net inorganic carbon metabolism (net community calcification; NCC) within 23 coral reef locations across the globe. In light of these results, we consider the suitability of using these two metrics developed from total alkalinity (TA) and dissolved inorganic carbon (DIC) measurements collected on different spatiotemporal scales to monitor coral reef biogeochemistry under anthropogenic change. All reefs in this study were net calcifying for the majority of observations as inferred from alkalinity depletion relative to offshore, although occasional observations of net dissolution occurred at most locations. However, reefs with lower net calcification potential (i.e., lower TA depletion) could shift towards net dissolution sooner than reefs with a higher potential. The percent influence of organic carbon fluxes on total changes in dissolved inorganic carbon (DIC) (i.e., NCP compared to the sum of NCP and NCC) ranged from 32% to 88% and reflected inherent biogeochemical differences between reefs. Reefs with the largest relative percentage of NCP experienced the largest variability in seawater pH for a given change in DIC, which is directly related to the reefs ability to elevate or suppress local pH relative to the open ocean. This work highlights the value of measuring coral reef carbonate chemistry when evaluating their susceptibility to ongoing global environmental change and offers a baseline from which to guide future conservation efforts aimed at preserving these valuable ecosystems.
DOI
10.1371/journal.pone.0190872
Volume
13
Issue
1
First Page
e0190872
Additional Comments
NSF grant #s: OCE 09-28406, OCE 12-55042; Australian Research Council grant #: DP150102092; Agence Nationale de la Recherche STORISK project #: ANR-15-CE03-0003-08, J-PG
NSUWorks Citation
Tyler Cyronak, Andreas J. Andersson, Chris Langdon, Rebecca Albright, Nicholas R. Bates, Ken Caldeira, Renee Carlton, Jorge E. Corredor, Rob B. Dunbar, Ian Enochs, Jonathan Erez, Bradley D. Eyre, Jean-Pierre Gattuso, Dwight Gledhill, Hajime Kayanne, David I. Kline, David A. Koweek, Coulson Lantz, Boaz Lazar, Derek Manzello, Ashly McMahon, Melissa Melendez, Heather N. Page, Isaac R. Santos, Kai G. Schulz, Emily Shaw, Jacob Silverman, Atsushi Suzuki, Lida Teneva, Atsushi Watanabe, and Shoji Yamamoto. 2018. Taking the Metabolic Pulse of the World's Coral Reefs .PLoS ONE , (1) : e0190872 . https://nsuworks.nova.edu/occ_facarticles/1045.
Comments
This is an open access article, free of all copyright, and may be freely reproduced, distributed, transmitted, modified, built upon, or otherwise used by anyone for any lawful purpose. The work is made available under the Creative Commons CC0 public domain dedication.