Seawater carbonate chemistry and fish communities properties off CO2 seeps in Japan

• Main Authors: Cattano, Carlo, Agostini, Sylvain, Harvey, Ben P, Wada, Shigeki, Quattrocchi, F, Turco, G, Inaba, Kazuo, Hall-Spencer, Jason M, Milazzo, Marco
• Format: Dataset
• Language: English
• Published: PANGAEA - Data Publisher for Earth & Environmental Science 2020
• Subjects: Benthos; CO2 vent; Coast and continental shelf; Community composition and diversity; Entire community; Field observation; North Pacific; Pelagos; Rocky-shore community; Temperate; Type; Season; Location; Site; Partial pressure of carbon dioxide water at sea surface temperature wet air; Transect; Canopy height; Canopy height, standard deviation; Biotic Habitat Profile ratio; Biotic Habitat Profile ratio, standard deviation; Coverage; Coverage, standard deviation; Species richness; Species richness, standard deviation; Fish; Fish, standard deviation; Salinity; Salinity, standard deviation; Temperature, water; Temperature, water, standard deviation; pH; pH, standard deviation; Replicates; Alkalinity, total; Partial pressure of carbon dioxide, standard deviation; Carbonate system computation flag; Carbon dioxide; Fugacity of carbon dioxide water at sea surface temperature wet air; Bicarbonate ion; Carbonate ion; Carbon, inorganic, dissolved; Aragonite saturation state; Calcite saturation state; Experiment; Potentiometric; Potentiometric titration; 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.922738; https://doi.pangaea.de/10.1594/PANGAEA.922738

Ocean acidification will likely change the structure and function of coastal marine ecosystems over coming decades. Volcanic carbon dioxide seeps generate dissolved CO2 and pH gradients that provide realistic insights into the direction and magnitude of these changes. Here, we used fish and benthic community surveys to assess the spatio-temporal dynamics of fish community properties off CO2 seeps in Japan. Adding to previous evidence from ocean acidification ecosystem studies conducted elsewhere, our findings documented shifts from calcified to non-calcified habitats with reduced benthic complexity. In addition, we found that such habitat transition led to decreased diversity of associated fish and to selection of those fish species better adapted to simplified ecosystems dominated by algae. Our data suggest that near-future projected ocean acidification levels will oppose the ongoing range expansion of coral reef-associated fish due to global warming. : 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 2020-07-07.