Responses of the tropical gorgonian coral Eunicea fusca to ocean acidification conditions, supplement to: Gómez, C E; Paul, V J; Ritson-Williams, R; Muehllehner, Nancy; Langdon, Chris; Sánchez, J A (2014): Responses of the tropical gorgonian coral Eunicea fusca to ocean acidification conditions. Coral Reefs, 34(2), 451-460

• Main Authors: Gómez, C E, Paul, V J, Ritson-Williams, R, Muehllehner, Nancy, Langdon, Chris, Sánchez, J A
• Format: Dataset
• Language: English
• Published: PANGAEA - Data Publisher for Earth & Environmental Science 2015
• Subjects: Animalia; Benthic animals; Benthos; Calcification/Dissolution; Cnidaria; Coast and continental shelf; Containers and aquaria 20-1000 L or < 1 m**2; Eunicea fusca; Growth/Morphology; Laboratory experiment; North Atlantic; Single species; Temperate; Species; Replicates; Growth rate; Growth rate, standard error; Mass change; Mass change, standard error; Calcein; Calcein, standard error; Salinity; Temperature, water; Identification; Alkalinity, total; Alkalinity, total, standard deviation; pH; pH, 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; Carbon, inorganic, dissolved; Experiment; Potentiometric titration; Potentiometric; Calculated using CO2SYS; Calculated using seacarb after Nisumaa et al. 2010; Ocean Acidification International Coordination Centre OA-ICC; Pacific; Ocean acidification
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.1594/pangaea.847831; https://doi.pangaea.de/10.1594/PANGAEA.847831

Ocean acidification can have negative repercussions from the organism to ecosystem levels. Octocorals deposit high-magnesium calcite in their skeletons, and according to different models, they could be more susceptible to the depletion of carbonate ions than either calcite or aragonite-depositing organisms. This study investigated the response of the gorgonian coral Eunicea fusca to a range of CO2 concentrations from 285 to 4,568 ppm (pH range 8.1-7.1) over a 4-week period. Gorgonian growth and calcification were measured at each level of CO2 as linear extension rate and percent change in buoyant weight and calcein incorporation in individual sclerites, respectively. There was a significant negative relationship for calcification and CO2 concentration that was well explained by a linear model regression analysis for both buoyant weight and calcein staining. In general, growth and calcification did not stop in any of the concentrations of pCO2; however, some of the octocoral fragments experienced negative calcification at undersaturated levels of calcium carbonate (>4,500 ppm) suggesting possible dissolution effects. These results highlight the susceptibility of the gorgonian coral E. fusca to elevated levels of carbon dioxide but suggest that E. fusca could still survive well in mid-term ocean acidification conditions expected by the end of this century, which provides important information on the effects of ocean acidification on the dynamics of coral reef communities. Gorgonian corals can be expected to diversify and thrive in the Atlantic-Eastern Pacific; as scleractinian corals decline, it is likely to expect a shift in these reef communities from scleractinian coral dominated to octocoral/soft coral dominated under a "business as usual" scenario of CO2 emissions. : 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.