Seawater carbonate chemistry and food web composition, productivity, and trophic architecture

• Main Authors: Nagelkerken, Ivan, Goldenberg, Silvan U, Ferreira, Camilo M, Ullah, Hadayet, Connell, Sean D
• Format: Dataset
• Language: English
• Published: PANGAEA - Data Publisher for Earth & Environmental Science 2020
• Subjects: Benthos; Biomass/Abundance/Elemental composition; Coast and continental shelf; Community composition and diversity; Entire community; Growth/Morphology; Laboratory experiment; Mesocosm or benthocosm; Other studied parameter or process; Primary production/Photosynthesis; Rocky-shore community; South Pacific; Temperate; Temperature; Type; Treatment; Mesocosm label; Dry mass; Net community production of oxygen; Wet mass; Ratio; Trophic level; Functional group; Wet mass production; Taxon/taxa; Abbreviation; δ15N; δ15N, standard error; δ13C; δ13C, standard error; Nitrogen; Nitrogen, standard error; Carbon; Carbon, standard error; Carbon/Nitrogen ratio; Effects sizes; Energy flow; Comment; Temperature, water; Temperature, water, standard deviation; pH; pH, standard deviation; Salinity; Salinity, standard deviation; Alkalinity, total; Alkalinity, total, standard deviation; Partial pressure of carbon dioxide water at sea surface temperature wet air; Partial pressure of carbon dioxide, standard deviation; Bicarbonate ion; Bicarbonate ion, standard deviation; Carbonate ion; Carbonate ion, standard deviation; Calcite saturation state; Calcite saturation state, standard deviation; Aragonite saturation state; Aragonite saturation state, standard deviation; Carbonate system computation flag; Carbon dioxide; Fugacity of carbon dioxide water at sea surface temperature wet air; Carbon, inorganic, dissolved; Experiment; Potentiometric; Potentiometric titration; Calculated using CO2SYS; Calculated using seacarb after Nisumaa et al. 2010; Ocean Acidification International Coordination Centre OA-ICC; Pacific; Pyramid; Ocean acidification
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.1594/pangaea.928950; https://doi.pangaea.de/10.1594/PANGAEA.928950

As human activities intensify, the structures of ecosystems and their food webs often reorganize. Through the study of mesocosms harboring a diverse benthic coastal community, we reveal that food web architecture can be inflexible under ocean warming and acidification and unable to compensate for the decline or proliferation of taxa. Key stabilizing processes, including functional redundancy, trophic compensation, and species substitution, were largely absent under future climate conditions. A trophic pyramid emerged in which biomass expanded at the base and top but contracted in the center. This structure may characterize a transitionary state before collapse into shortened, bottom-heavy food webs that characterize ecosystems subject to persistent abiotic stress. We show that where food web architecture lacks adjustability, the adaptive capacity of ecosystems to global change is weak and ecosystem degradation likely. : In order to allow full comparability with other ocean acidification data sets, the R package seacarb (Gattuso et al, 2021) 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 2021-03-09.