Biomineral shell formation under ocean acidification: a shift from order to chaos

• Main Authors: Fitzer, Susan C, Chung, Peter, Maccherozzi, Francesco, Dhesi, Sarnjeet S, Kamenos, N A, Phoenix, Vernon R, Cusack, Maggie
• Format: Dataset
• Language: English
• Published: PANGAEA - Data Publisher for Earth & Environmental Science 2016
• Subjects: Animalia; Benthic animals; Benthos; Bottles or small containers/Aquaria <20 L; Coast and continental shelf; Laboratory experiment; Mollusca; Mytilus edulis; North Atlantic; Other studied parameter or process; Single species; Temperate; Type; Species; Registration number of species; Uniform resource locator/link to reference; Treatment; Energy; Intensity; Salinity; Salinity, standard deviation; Oxygen saturation; Oxygen saturation, standard deviation; Temperature, water; Temperature, water, standard deviation; Partial pressure of carbon dioxide water at sea surface temperature wet air; Partial pressure of carbon dioxide, standard deviation; Alkalinity, total; Alkalinity, total, standard deviation; Calcite saturation state; Aragonite saturation state; Bicarbonate ion; Carbonate ion; Carbonate system computation flag; pH; Carbon dioxide; Fugacity of carbon dioxide water at sea surface temperature wet air; Carbon, inorganic, dissolved; Calculated using seacarb after Nisumaa et al. 2010; Ocean Acidification International Coordination Centre OA-ICC; Ocean acidification
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.1594/pangaea.868601; https://doi.pangaea.de/10.1594/PANGAEA.868601

Biomineral production in marine organisms employs transient phases of amorphous calcium carbonate (ACC) in the construction of crystalline shells. Increasing seawater pCO2 leads to ocean acidification (OA) with a reduction in oceanic carbonate concentration which could have a negative impact on shell formation and therefore survival. We demonstrate significant changes in the hydrated and dehydrated forms of ACC in the aragonite and calcite layers of Mytilus edulis shells cultured under acidification conditions (1000 µatm pCO2) compared to present day conditions (380 µatm pCO2). In OA conditions, Mytilus edulis has more ACC at crystalisation sites. Here, we use the high-spatial resolution of synchrotron X-ray Photo Emission Electron Microscopy (XPEEM) combined with X-ray Absorption Spectroscopy (XAS) to investigate the influence of OA on the ACC formation in the shells of adult Mytilus edulis. Electron Backscatter Diffraction (EBSD) confirms that OA reduces crystallographic control of shell formation. The results demonstrate that OA induces more ACC formation and less crystallographic control in mussels suggesting that ACC is used as a repair mechanism to combat shell damage under OA. However, the resultant reduced crystallographic control in mussels raises concerns for shell protective function under predation and changing environments. : 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 2016-11-15.