Structural and functional vulnerability to elevated pCO2 in marine benthic communities, supplement to: Christen, Nadja; Calosi, Piero; McNeill, C L; Widdicombe, Stephen (2012): Structural and functional vulnerability to elevated pCO2 in marine benthic communities. Marine Biology, 160(8), 2113-2128

• Main Authors: Christen, Nadja, Calosi, Piero, McNeill, C L, Widdicombe, Stephen
• Format: Dataset
• Language: English
• Published: PANGAEA - Data Publisher for Earth & Environmental Science 2013
• Subjects: Benthos; Biomass/Abundance/Elemental composition; Bottles or small containers/Aquaria <20 L; Calcification/Dissolution; Coast and continental shelf; Community composition and diversity; Entire community; Laboratory experiment; North Atlantic; Rocky-shore community; Temperate; Description; Identification; Treatment; Number of species; Number of individuals; Evenness of species; Number of calcareous species; Number of non-calcareous species; Number of calcareous individuals; Number of non-calcareous individuals; Biomass, wet mass; Organisms, calcareous, biomass; Organisms, non-calcareous, biomass; Calcium carbonate, mass; Soft tissue, mass; Net calcification rate of calcium carbonate; Salinity; Salinity, standard deviation; Temperature, water; Temperature, standard deviation; Alkalinity, total; Alkalinity, total, standard deviation; pH; Oxygen; Oxygen, standard deviation; Carbon, inorganic, dissolved; Carbon, inorganic, dissolved, standard deviation; Partial pressure of carbon dioxide water at sea surface temperature wet air; Partial pressure of carbon dioxide, standard deviation; Bicarbonate ion; Bicarbonate ion, standard deviation; Carbonate ion; Carbonate ion, standard deviation; Calcite saturation state; Calcite saturation state, standard deviation; Aragonite saturation state; Aragonite saturation state, standard deviation; Carbonate system computation flag; Carbon dioxide; Fugacity of carbon dioxide water at sea surface temperature wet air; Experiment; Potentiometric titration; Potentiometric; Calculated using CO2SYS; Calculated using seacarb after Nisumaa et al. 2010; Ocean Acidification International Coordination Centre OA-ICC; McNeill; Ocean acidification
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.1594/pangaea.823607; https://doi.pangaea.de/10.1594/PANGAEA.823607

The effect of elevated pCO2/low pH on marine invertebrate benthic biodiversity, community structure and selected functional responses which underpin ecosystem services (such as community production and calcification) was tested in a medium-term (30 days) mesocosm experiment in June 2010. Standardised intertidal macrobenthic communities, collected (50.3567°N, 4.1277°W) using artificial substrate units (ASUs), were exposed to one of seven pH treatments (8.05, 7.8. 7.6, 7.4, 7.2, 6.8 and 6.0). Community net calcification/dissolution rates, as well as changes in biomass, community structure and diversity, were measured at the end of the experimental period. Communities showed significant changes in structure and reduced diversity in response to reduced pH: shifting from a community dominated by calcareous organisms to one dominated by non-calcareous organisms around either pH 7.2 (number of individuals and species) or pH 7.8 (biomass). These results were supported by a reduced total weight of CaCO3 structures in all major taxa at lowered pH and a switch from net calcification to net dissolution around pH 7.4 (Omega calc = 0.78, Omega ara = 0.5). Overall community soft tissue biomass did not change with pH and high mortality was observed only at pH 6.0, although molluscs and arthropods showed significant decreases in soft tissue. This study supports and refines previous findings on how elevated pCO2 can induce changes in marine biodiversity, underlined by differential vulnerability of different phyla. In addition, it shows significant elevated pCO2-/low pH-dependent changes in fundamental community functional responses underpinning changes in ecosystem services. : 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 2013-12-04.