Seawater carbonate chemistry and Ruditapes decussatus biological processes during experiments, 2011, supplement to: Range, P; ChÌcharo, M A; Ben-Hamadou, R; Pilò, D; Matias, D; Joaquim, S; Oliveira, A P; ChÌcharo, L (2011): Calcification, growth and mortality of juvenile clams Ruditapes decussatus under increased pCO2 and reduced pH: Variable responses to ocean acidification at local scales? Journal of Experimental Marine Biology and Ecology, 396(2), 177-184

• Main Authors: Range, P, ChÌcharo, M A, Ben-Hamadou, R, Pilò, D, Matias, D, Joaquim, S, Oliveira, A P, ChÌcharo, L
• Format: Dataset
• Language: English
• Published: PANGAEA - Data Publisher for Earth & Environmental Science 2011
• Subjects: Animalia; Benthic animals; Benthos; Bottles or small containers/Aquaria <20 L; Coast and continental shelf; Growth/Morphology; Laboratory experiment; Mollusca; Mortality/Survival; North Atlantic; Reproduction; FOS Medical biotechnology; Ruditapes decussatus; Single species; Temperate; Date; Sample ID; Experimental treatment; pH; Salinity; Temperature, water; Alkalinity, total; Carbon, inorganic, dissolved; Carbon dioxide; Partial pressure of carbon dioxide water at sea surface temperature wet air; Calcite saturation state; Aragonite saturation state; Ruditapes decussatus, weight, shell; Ruditapes decussatus, dry weight, flesh; Condition index; Mortality; Ruditapes decussatus, shell length, increase; Ruditapes decussatus, shell width, increase; Ruditapes decussatus, live weight, increase; Carbonate system computation flag; Fugacity of carbon dioxide water at sea surface temperature wet air; Bicarbonate ion; Carbonate ion; Aqua Medic electrodes and the dataloggerf; see references; Measured; Mortality based on Taylor 1958; Calculated using seacarb after Nisumaa et al. 2010; European network of excellence for Ocean Ecosystems Analysis EUR-OCEANS; European Project on Ocean Acidification EPOCA; Ocean Acidification International Coordination Centre OA-ICC; Ocean acidification
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.1594/pangaea.758702; https://doi.pangaea.de/10.1594/PANGAEA.758702

We investigated the effects of ocean acidification on juvenile clams Ruditapes decussatus (average shell length 10.24 mm) in a controlled CO2 perturbation experiment. The carbonate chemistry of seawater was manipulated by diffusing pure CO2, to attain two reduced pH levels (by -0.4 and -0.7 pH units), which were compared to unmanipulated seawater. After 75 days we found no differences among pH treatments in terms of net calcification, size or weight of the clams. The naturally elevated total alkalinity of local seawater probably contributed to buffer the effects of increased pCO2 and reduced pH. Marine organisms may, therefore, show diverse responses to ocean acidification at local scales, particularly in coastal, estuarine and transitional waters, where the physical-chemical characteristics of seawater are most variable. Mortality was significantly reduced in the acidified treatments. This trend was probably related to the occurrence of spontaneous spawning events in the control and intermediate acidification treatments. Spawning, which was unexpected due to the small size of the clams, was not observed for the pH -0.7 treatment, suggesting that the increased survival under acidified conditions may have been associated with a delay in the reproductive cycle of the clams. Future research about the impacts of ocean acidification on marine biodiversity should be extended to other types of biological and ecological processes, apart from biological calcification. : In order to allow full comparability with other ocean acidification data sets, the R package seacarb (Lavigne and Gattuso, 2011) was used to compute a complete and consistent set of carbonate system variables, as described by Nisumaa et al. (2010). In this dataset the original values were archived in addition with the recalculated parameters (see related PI).