Have coral calcification rates slowed in the last twenty years?

International audience This paper reports a reanalysis of calcification rates of 328 Porites cores from the Great Barrier Reef from which previous workers have concluded that a 14% reduction in calcification rates has occurred between 1990 and 2005. In this reanalysis it is shown that the apparent r...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Marine Geology
Main Authors: Ridd, Peter V, Teixeira Da Silva, Eduardo, Stieglitz, Thomas
Other Authors: Marine Geophysical Laboratory, James Cook University (JCU), Laboratoire des Sciences de l'Environnement Marin (LEMAR) (LEMAR), Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD)-Institut Français de Recherche pour l'Exploitation de la Mer (IFREMER)-Université de Brest (UBO)-Institut Universitaire Européen de la Mer (IUEM), Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD)-Institut national des sciences de l'Univers (INSU - CNRS)-Université de Brest (UBO)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Institut national des sciences de l'Univers (INSU - CNRS)-Université de Brest (UBO)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: HAL CCSD 2013
Subjects:
coral
calcification
Great Barrier Reef
ocean acidification
ocean pH
[SDE]Environmental Sciences
Ocean acidification
Online Access:https://hal.univ-brest.fr/hal-00944553
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.margeo.2013.09.002
Description
Summary:International audience This paper reports a reanalysis of calcification rates of 328 Porites cores from the Great Barrier Reef from which previous workers have concluded that a 14% reduction in calcification rates has occurred between 1990 and 2005. In this reanalysis it is shown that the apparent reduction in the Porites spp. calcification rate in the last two decades is at least partly due to a combination of (a) ontogenetic effects (disregarded in the previous analysis), combined with a highly variable age distribution of the coral growth bands with time, and (b) a systematic data bias clearly evident in the last growth band of each core. When the outermost growth band in addition to bands which have record age less than 20 years was excluded from the analysis, the dramatic fall in calcification after 1990 was no longer evident.

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