Calcification is not the Achilles'heel of cold-water corals in an acidifying ocean, supplement to: Rodolfo-Metalpa, Riccardo; Montagna, Paolo; Aliani, Stefano; Borghini, Mireno; Canese, Simonepietro; Hall-Spencer, Jason M; Foggo, A; Milazzo, Marco; Taviani, Marco; Houlbrèque, Fanny (2015): Calcification is not the Achilles' heel of cold-water corals in an acidifying ocean. Global Change Biology, 21(6), 2238-2248

• Main Authors: Rodolfo-Metalpa, Riccardo, Montagna, Paolo, Aliani, Stefano, Borghini, Mireno, Canese, Simonepietro, Hall-Spencer, Jason M, Foggo, A, Milazzo, Marco, Taviani, Marco, Houlbrèque, Fanny
• Format: Dataset
• Language: English
• Published: PANGAEA - Data Publisher for Earth & Environmental Science 2015
• Subjects: Animalia; Benthic animals; Benthos; Calcification/Dissolution; Caryophyllia smithii; Cnidaria; Containers and aquaria 20-1000 L or < 1 m**2; Deep-sea; Dendrophyllia cornigera; Desmophyllum dianthus; Field experiment; Laboratory experiment; Mediterranean Sea; Respiration; Single species; Temperate; Event label; Species; Figure; Treatment; Identification; Calcification rate of calcium carbonate; Dissolution rate; Respiration rate, oxygen; Salinity; Temperature, water; Temperature, water, standard deviation; pH; pH, standard deviation; Alkalinity, total; Alkalinity, total, standard deviation; Partial pressure of carbon dioxide water at sea surface temperature wet air; Partial pressure of carbon dioxide, standard deviation; Carbon dioxide; Carbon dioxide, standard deviation; Carbonate ion; Carbonate ion, standard deviation; Bicarbonate ion; Bicarbonate ion, standard deviation; Aragonite saturation state; Aragonite saturation state, standard deviation; Carbonate system computation flag; Fugacity of carbon dioxide water at sea surface temperature wet air; Carbon, inorganic, dissolved; Calcite saturation state; Experiment; Potentiometric; Potentiometric titration; Calculated using CO2SYS; Calculated using seacarb after Nisumaa et al. 2010; Ocean Acidification International Coordination Centre OA-ICC; Achilles Heel; Ocean acidification
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.1594/pangaea.847763; https://doi.pangaea.de/10.1594/PANGAEA.847763

Ocean acidification is thought to be a major threat to coral reefs: laboratory evidence and CO2 seep research has shown adverse effects on many coral species, although a few are resilient. There are concerns that cold-water corals are even more vulnerable as they live in areas where aragonite saturation (Omega ara) is lower than in the tropics and is falling rapidly due to CO2 emissions. Here, we provide laboratory evidence that net (gross calcification minus dissolution) and gross calcification rates of three common cold-water corals, Caryophyllia smithii, Dendrophyllia cornigera, and Desmophyllum dianthus, are not affected by pCO2 levels expected for 2100 (pCO2 1058 µatm, Omega ara 1.29), and nor are the rates of skeletal dissolution in D. dianthus. We transplanted D. dianthus to 350 m depth (pHT 8.02; pCO2 448 µatm, Omega ara 2.58) and to a 3 m depth CO2 seep in oligotrophic waters (pHT 7.35; pCO2 2879 µatm, Omega ara 0.76) and found that the transplants calcified at the same rates regardless of the pCO2 confirming their resilience to acidification, but at significantly lower rates than corals that were fed in aquaria. Our combination of field and laboratory evidence suggests that ocean acidification will not disrupt cold-water coral calcification although falling aragonite levels may affect other organismal physiological and/or reef community processes. : In order to allow full comparability with other ocean acidification data sets, the R package seacarb (Gattuso et al, 2015) 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 is 2015-07-03.