Experiments to Determine the Impacts of a High CO2 World on High Latitude, Temperate and Tropical Benthic Foraminifera

Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Woods Hole MA

Investigators

Abstract

The well being of marine ecosystems is in peril given the increase in oceanic pCO2 and ocean acidification resulting from the rise in atmospheric CO2 over the last century. Because it can be argued that calcifying fauna are particularly vulnerable to these changes in ocean chemistry, coral reef ecosystems have received much recent scrutiny in this regard. It may, however, be equally important to similarly study high-latitude ecosystems because the low temperatures of those regions negatively affect calcification and enhance the uptake of atmospheric CO2. Thus, attempts to understand the effects of CO2 increase and ocean acidification on marine faunas would reasonably target both tropical reef and shallow-water, high-latitude taxa. One way to determine the response of such marine fauna to elevated pCO2 is to perform experiments where the carbonate system is manipulated and monitored while other environmental parameters are held constant. The overall goal of this project is to determine through such experimentation if the predicted increase in surface ocean pCO2, associated with observed and predicted increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide, will be lethal to benthic foraminifera. This protistan taxon is selected mainly because it includes calcifying and noncalcifying forms and is ubiquitous at all latitudes. To address regional effects of ocean acidification, experimentation will include foraminiferal species from high latitude, temperate, and tropical shallow benthic environments; the sites include a Swedish fjord, a sediment-focus area on the continental slope off Cape Cod, and a Florida coral reef. The broader impacts include developing integrated studies to assess regional responses to elevated pCO2 and ocean acidification useful for predictions of future ecosystem dynamics. In addition, this project, which includes investigators from WHOI, the University of South Florida, and Göteborg University (Sweden), has multiple avenues for education to graduate and undergraduate students, as well as local high school students.