Reduced calcification and lack of acclimatization by coral colonies growing in areas of persistent natural acidification, supplement to: Crook, Elizabeth Derse; Cohen, Anne L; Rebolledo-Vieyra, Mario; Hernandez, Laura; Paytan, Adina (2013): Reduced calcification and lack of acclimatization by coral colonies growing in areas of persistent natural acidification. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 110(27), 11044-11049

• Main Authors: Crook, Elizabeth Derse, Cohen, Anne L, Rebolledo-Vieyra, Mario, Hernandez, Laura, Paytan, Adina
• Format: Dataset
• Language: English
• Published: PANGAEA - Data Publisher for Earth & Environmental Science 2013
• Subjects: Animalia; Benthic animals; Benthos; Calcification/Dissolution; Cnidaria; Field observation; Growth/Morphology; North Atlantic; Porites astreoides; Single species; Tropical; Figure; Species; Treatment; Linear extension; Linear extension, standard deviation; Linear extension, standard error; Density; Density, standard deviation; Density, standard error; Calcification rate; Calcification rate, standard deviation; Calcification rate, standard error; Thickness; Thickness, standard deviation; Thickness, standard error; Volume ratio; Salinity; Temperature, water; Carbon, inorganic, dissolved; Carbon, inorganic, dissolved, standard deviation; Alkalinity, total; Alkalinity, total, standard deviation; pH; Aragonite saturation state; Aragonite saturation state, standard deviation; Calcification rate, ratio; Carbonate system computation flag; Carbon dioxide; Partial pressure of carbon dioxide water at sea surface temperature wet air; Fugacity of carbon dioxide water at sea surface temperature wet air; Bicarbonate ion; Carbonate ion; Calcite saturation state; Calculated using CO2SYS; Calculated using seacarb after Nisumaa et al. 2010; Ocean Acidification International Coordination Centre OA-ICC; Hernandez; Ocean acidification
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.1594/pangaea.831619; https://doi.pangaea.de/10.1594/PANGAEA.831619

As the surface ocean equilibrates with rising atmospheric CO2, the pH of surface seawater is decreasing with potentially negative impacts on coral calcification. A critical question is whether corals will be able to adapt or acclimate to these changes in seawater chemistry. We use high precision CT scanning of skeletal cores of Porites astreoides, an important Caribbean reef-building coral, to show that calcification rates decrease significantly along a natural gradient in pH and aragonite saturation (Omega arag). This decrease is accompanied by an increase in skeletal erosion and predation by boring organisms. The degree of sensitivity to reduced Oarag measured on our field corals is consistent with that exhibited by the same species in laboratory CO2 manipulation experiments. We conclude that the Porites corals at our field site were not able to acclimatize enough to prevent the impacts of local ocean acidification on their skeletal growth and development, despite spending their entire lifespan in low pH, low Omega arag seawater. : 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 2014-04-09.