Seawater carbonate chemistry and calcification rate in flume experiment, supplement to: Comeau, Steeve; Carpenter, Robert C; Lantz, Coulson A; Edmunds, Peter J (2015): Ocean acidification accelerates dissolution of experimental coral reef communities. Biogeosciences, 12(2), 365-372

• Main Authors: Comeau, Steeve, Edmunds, Peter J, Lantz, Coulson A, Carpenter, Robert C
• Format: Dataset
• Language: English
• Published: PANGAEA - Data Publisher for Earth & Environmental Science 2015
• Subjects: Benthos; Calcification/Dissolution; Coast and continental shelf; Containers and aquaria 20-1000 L or < 1 m**2; Entire community; Laboratory experiment; Rocky-shore community; South Pacific; Tropical; Sample code/label; Date; Sample comment; Identification; Treatment; Calcification rate; Salinity; Temperature, water; pH; Partial pressure of carbon dioxide water at sea surface temperature wet air; Bicarbonate ion; Carbonate ion; Carbon, inorganic, dissolved; Alkalinity, total; Aragonite saturation state; Calcite saturation state; Carbonate system computation flag; Carbon dioxide; Fugacity of carbon dioxide water at sea surface temperature wet air; Experiment; Spectrophotometric; Calculated using seacarb; Potentiometric titration; 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.847986; https://doi.pangaea.de/10.1594/PANGAEA.847986

Ocean acidification (OA) poses a severe threat to tropical coral reefs, yet much of what is know about these effects comes from individual corals and algae incubated in isolation under high pCO2. Studies of similar effects on coral reef communities are scarce. To investigate the response of coral reef communities to OA, we used large outdoor flumes in which communities composed of calcified algae, corals, and sediment were combined to match the percentage cover of benthic communities in the shallow back reef of Moorea, French Polynesia. Reef communities in the flumes were exposed to ambient (400 matm) and high pCO2 (1300 matm) for 8 weeks, and calcification rates measured for the constructed communities including the sediments. Community calcification was reduced by 59% under high pCO2, with sediment dissolution explaining ~ 50% of this decrease; net calcification of corals and calcified algae remained positive but was reduced by 29% under elevated pCO2. These results show that, despite the capacity of coral reef calcifiers to maintain positive net accretion of calcium carbonate under OA conditions, reef communities might transition to net dissolution as pCO2 increases, particularly at night, due to enhanced sediment dissolution. : 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 2015-07-09.