Seawater carbonate chemistry and particulate inorganic carbon, particulate organic carbon production, and growth rates of Scyphosphaera apsteinii

• Main Authors: Gafar, Natasha A, Eyre, Bradley D, Schulz, Kai Georg
• Format: Dataset
• Language: English
• Published: PANGAEA - Data Publisher for Earth & Environmental Science 2019
• Subjects: Bottles or small containers/Aquaria <20 L; Calcification/Dissolution; Chromista; Growth/Morphology; Haptophyta; Laboratory experiment; Laboratory strains; Light; Not applicable; Phytoplankton; Primary production/Photosynthesis; Scyphosphaera apsteinii; Single species; Type; Species; Registration number of species; Uniform resource locator/link to reference; Salinity; Temperature, water; Growth rate; Production of particulate organic carbon per cell; Carbon, inorganic, particulate, per cell; Carbon, organic, particulate, per cell; Particulate inorganic carbon/particulate organic carbon ratio; Fugacity of carbon dioxide water at sea surface temperature wet air; Carbon dioxide; Bicarbonate ion; Carbonate ion; pH; Hydrogen ion concentration; Alkalinity, total; Carbon, inorganic, dissolved; Irradiance; Partial pressure of carbon dioxide water at sea surface temperature wet air; Number; Number, standard deviation; Length; Length, standard deviation; Width; Width, standard deviation; Ratio; Ratio, standard deviation; Cell biovolume; Cell biovolume, standard deviation; Carbonate system computation flag; Aragonite saturation state; Calcite saturation state; Calculated using CO2SYS; 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.919773; https://doi.pangaea.de/10.1594/PANGAEA.919773

Coccolithophores are unicellular marine phytoplankton and important contributors to global carbon cycling. Most work on coccolithophore sensitivity to climate change has been on the small, abundant bloom-forming species Emiliania huxleyi and Gephyrocapsa oceanica. However, large coccolithophore species can be major contributors to coccolithophore community production even in low abundances. Here we fit an analytical equation, accounting for simultaneous changes in CO2 and light intensity, to rates of photosynthesis, calcification and growth in Scyphosphaera apsteinii. Comparison of responses to G. oceanica and E. huxleyi revealed S. apsteinii is a low-light adapted species and, in contrast, becomes more sensitive to changing environmental conditions when exposed to unfavourable CO2 or light. Additionally, all three species decreased their light requirement for optimal growth as CO2 levels increased. Our analysis suggests that this is driven by a drop in maximum rates and, in G. oceanica, increased substrate uptake efficiency. Increasing light intensity resulted in a higher proportion of muroliths (plate-shaped) to lopadoliths (vase shaped) and liths became richer in calcium carbonate as calcification rates increased. Light and CO2 driven changes in response sensitivity and maximum rates are likely to considerably alter coccolithophore community structure and productivity under future climate conditions. : In order to allow full comparability with other ocean acidification data sets, the R package seacarb (Gattuso et al, 2019) 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 2020-06-12.