Seawater carbonate chemistry and tissue biomass composition, calcification of a reef coral, supplement to: Wall, Christopher B; Mason, R A B; Ellis, W R; Cunning, Ross; Gates, Ruth D (2017): Elevated pCO2 affects tissue biomass composition, but not calcification, in a reef coral under two light regimes. Royal Society Open Science, 4(11), 170683

• Main Authors: Wall, Christopher B, Mason, R A B, Ellis, W R, Cunning, Ross, Gates, Ruth D
• Format: Dataset
• Language: English
• Published: PANGAEA - Data Publisher for Earth & Environmental Science 2017
• Subjects: Animalia; Benthic animals; Benthos; Biomass/Abundance/Elemental composition; Calcification/Dissolution; Cnidaria; Coast and continental shelf; Containers and aquaria 20-1000 L or < 1 m**2; Growth/Morphology; Laboratory experiment; Light; North Pacific; Pocillopora acuta; Single species; Tropical; Type; Species; Registration number of species; Uniform resource locator/link to reference; Experiment duration; Treatment; Identification; Colony number/ID; Volume; Surface area; Mass change; Ash free dry mass; Cell density; Chlorophyll a; Chlorophyll c2; Protein; Carbohydrates; Lipids; Lipid content; Irradiance; pH; pH, standard error; Alkalinity, total; Alkalinity, total, standard error; Partial pressure of carbon dioxide water at sea surface temperature wet air; Partial pressure of carbon dioxide water at sea surface temperature wet air, standard error; Bicarbonate ion; Bicarbonate ion, standard error; Carbonate ion; Carbonate ion, standard error; Aragonite saturation state; Aragonite saturation state, standard error; Salinity; Temperature, water; Temperature, water, standard error; Carbonate system computation flag; Carbon dioxide; Fugacity of carbon dioxide water at sea surface temperature wet air; Carbon, inorganic, dissolved; Calcite saturation state; Experiment; Potentiometric; Potentiometric titration; Calculated using seacarb; 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.892313; https://doi.pangaea.de/10.1594/PANGAEA.892313

Ocean acidification (OA) is predicted to reduce reef coral calcification rates and threaten the long-term growth of coral reefs under climate change. Reduced coral growth at elevated pCO2 may be buffered by sufficiently high irradiances; however, the interactive effects of OA and irradiance on other fundamental aspects of coral physiology, such as the composition and energetics of coral biomass, remain largely unexplored. This study tested the effects of two light treatments (7.5 versus 15.7 mol photons/m**2/d) at ambient or elevated pCO2 (435 versus 957 µatm) on calcification, photopigment and symbiont densities, biomass reserves (lipids, carbohydrates, proteins), and biomass energy content (kJ) of the reef coral Pocillopora acuta from Kāne'ohe Bay, Hawai'i. While pCO2 and light had no effect on either area- or biomass-normalized calcification, tissue lipids/gdw and kJ/gdw were reduced 15% and 14% at high pCO2, and carbohydrate content increased 15% under high light. The combination of high light and high pCO2 reduced protein biomass (per unit area) by approximately 20%. Thus, under ecologically relevant irradiances, P. acuta in Kāne'ohe Bay does not exhibit OA-driven reductions in calcification reported for other corals; however, reductions in tissue lipids, energy content and protein biomass suggest OA induced an energetic deficit and compensatory catabolism of tissue biomass. The null effects of OA on calcification at two irradiances support a growing body of work concluding some reef corals may be able to employ compensatory physiological mechanisms that maintain present-day levels of calcification under OA. However, negative effects of OA on P. acuta biomass composition and energy content may impact the long-term performance and scope for growth of this species in a high pCO2 world. : In order to allow full comparability with other ocean acidification data sets, the R package seacarb (Gattuso et al, 2016) 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 2018-07-02.