Physiological and ecological variables measured at the high and low pCO2 reef sections, supplement to: Fabricius, Katharina Elisabeth; Langdon, Chris; Uthicke, Sven; Humphrey, Craig; Noonan, Sam; De'ath, Glenn; Okazaki, Remy; Muehllehner, Nancy; Glas, Martin S; Lough, Janice M (2011): Losers and winners in coral reefs acclimatized to elevated carbon dioxide concentrations. Nature Climate Change, 1(3), 165-169

• Main Authors: Fabricius, Katharina Elisabeth, Langdon, Chris, Uthicke, Sven, Humphrey, Craig, Noonan, Sam, De'ath, Glenn, Okazaki, Remy, Muehllehner, Nancy, Glas, Martin S, Lough, Janice M
• Format: Dataset
• Language: English
• Published: PANGAEA - Data Publisher for Earth & Environmental Science 2011
• Subjects: Benthos; Calcification/Dissolution; CO2 vent; Coast and continental shelf; Community composition and diversity; Entire community; Field observation; Growth/Morphology; Rocky-shore community; South Pacific; Tropical; Description; Treatment; Coverage; Species richness; Areal density; Linear extension; Density, skeletal bulk; Calcification rate of calcium carbonate; Thickness; Pigmentation, color chart score; Growth rate; Biomass; Shannon Diversity Index; Epibionts; Foraminifera; Carbon, inorganic, total; Nitrogen, total, particulate; Carbon, organic, total; Density, faunal; Temperature, water; Salinity; Alkalinity, total; Carbon, inorganic, dissolved; Partial pressure of carbon dioxide water at sea surface temperature wet air; pH; Aragonite saturation state; Carbonate system computation flag; Carbon dioxide; Fugacity of carbon dioxide water at sea surface temperature wet air; Bicarbonate ion; Carbonate ion; Calcite saturation state; Potentiometric titration; Coulometric titration; Calculated using CO2SYS; Potentiometric; Calculated using seacarb after Nisumaa et al. 2010; Ocean Acidification International Coordination Centre OA-ICC; Pacific; Sven; Ocean acidification
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.1594/pangaea.821559; https://doi.pangaea.de/10.1594/PANGAEA.821559

Experiments have shown that ocean acidification due to rising atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations has deleterious effects on the performance of many marine organisms. However, few empirical or modelling studies have addressed the long-term consequences of ocean acidification for marine ecosystems. Here we show that as pH declines from 8.1 to 7.8 (the change expected if atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations increase from 390 to 750 ppm, consistent with some scenarios for the end of this century) some organisms benefit, but many more lose out. We investigated coral reefs, seagrasses and sediments that are acclimatized to low pH at three cool and shallow volcanic carbon dioxide seeps in Papua New Guinea. At reduced pH, we observed reductions in coral diversity, recruitment and abundances of structurally complex framework builders, and shifts in competitive interactions between taxa. However, coral cover remained constant between pH 8.1 and ~7.8, because massive Porites corals established dominance over structural corals, despite low rates of calcification. Reef development ceased below pH 7.7. Our empirical data from this unique field setting confirm model predictions that ocean acidification, together with temperature stress, will probably lead to severely reduced diversity, structural complexity and resilience of Indo-Pacific coral reefs within this century. : 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). The date of carbonate chemistry calculation by seacarb is 2013-10-17.