Ocean acidification and otolith development in larvae of a tropical marine fish

• Other Authors: Philip Laing Munday (hasCollector), Danielle Lynn Dixson (hasCollector)
• Format: Dataset
• Language: unknown
• Published: James Cook University
• Subjects: Ocean acidification; Ecological Impacts of Climate Change; ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES; ECOLOGICAL APPLICATIONS; Evolutionary Biology not elsewhere classified; BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES; EVOLUTIONARY BIOLOGY; Expanding Knowledge in the Biological Sciences; EXPANDING KNOWLEDGE; Climate and Climate Change not elsewhere classified; ENVIRONMENT; CLIMATE AND CLIMATE CHANGE
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-8-1631-2011; https://researchdata.ands.org.au/ocean-acidification-otolith-marine-fish/10449

This research tested the susceptibility of otolith development in clownfish to increasing acidity and temperature. We reared larvae of the clownfish Amphiprion percula from hatching to settlement at three pHNBS and pCO2 levels (control: pH 8.15 and 404 μatm CO2; intermediate: pH 7.8 and 1050 μatm CO2; extreme: pH 7.6 and 1721 μatm CO2) to test the possible effects of ocean acidification on otolith development. There was no effect of the intermediate treatment (pH 7.8 and 1050 μatm CO2) on otolith size, shape, symmetry between left and right otoliths, or otolith elemental chemistry, compared with controls. However, in the more extreme treatment (pH 7.6 and 1721 μatm CO2) otolith area and maximum length were larger than controls, although no other traits were significantly affected. Our results support the hypothesis that pH regulation in the otolith endolymph can lead to increased precipitation of CaCO3 in otoliths of larval fish exposed to elevated CO2, as proposed by an earlier study, however, our results also show that sensitivity varies considerably among species. The dataset consists of a spreadsheet in .csv format