Seawater carbonate chemistry and growth, photosynthetic and calcification rates of a coastal strain of Emiliania huxleyi

• Main Authors: Li, Futian, Xu, Jiekai, Beardall, John, Gao, Kunshan
• Format: Dataset
• Language: English
• Published: PANGAEA - Data Publisher for Earth & Environmental Science 2021
• Subjects: Bottles or small containers/Aquaria <20 L; Calcification/Dissolution; Chromista; Emiliania huxleyi; Growth/Morphology; Haptophyta; Laboratory experiment; Laboratory strains; Not applicable; Pelagos; Phytoplankton; Primary production/Photosynthesis; Single species; Type; Species; Registration number of species; Uniform resource locator/link to reference; Treatment; Growth rate; Growth rate, standard deviation; Time in hours; Cell size; Cell size, standard deviation; Irradiance; Electron transport rate, relative; Electron transport rate, relative, standard deviation; Maximum photochemical quantum yield of photosystem II; Maximum photochemical quantum yield of photosystem II, standard deviation; Effective photochemical quantum yield; Effective photochemical quantum yield, standard deviation; Net photosynthesis rate per cell; Net photosynthesis rate, standard deviation; Calcification rate of carbon per cell; Calcification rate, standard deviation; Photosynthesis rate, carbon, per cell; Temperature, water; Salinity; pH; pH, standard deviation; Alkalinity, total; Alkalinity, total, standard deviation; Carbonate system computation flag; Carbon dioxide; Fugacity of carbon dioxide water at sea surface temperature wet air; Partial pressure of carbon dioxide water at sea surface temperature wet air; Bicarbonate ion; Carbonate ion; Carbon, inorganic, dissolved; Aragonite saturation state; Calcite saturation state; 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.932009; https://doi.pangaea.de/10.1594/PANGAEA.932009

The carbonate chemistry in coastal waters is more variable compared with that of open oceans, both in magnitude and time scale of its fluctuations. However, knowledge of the responses of coastal phytoplankton to dynamic changes in pH/pCO2 has been scarcely documented. Hence, we investigated the physiological performance of a coastal isolate of the coccolithophore Emiliania huxleyi (PML B92/11) under fluctuating and stable pCO2 regimes (steady ambient pCO2, 400 μatm; steady elevated pCO2, 1200 μatm; diurnally fluctuating elevated pCO2, 600–1800 μatm). Elevated pCO2 inhibited the calcification rate in both the steady and fluctuating regimes. However, higher specific growth rates and lower ratios of calcification to photosynthesis were detected in the cells grown under diurnally fluctuating elevated pCO2 conditions. The fluctuating pCO2 regime alleviated the negative effects of elevated pCO2 on effective photochemical quantum yield and relative photosynthetic electron transport rate compared with the steady elevated pCO2 treatment. Our results suggest that growth of E. huxleyi could benefit from diel fluctuations of pH/pCO2 under future-projected ocean acidification, but its calcification was reduced by the fluctuation and the increased concentration of CO2, reflecting a necessity to consider the influences of dynamic pH fluctuations on coastal carbon cycles associated with ocean global changes. : 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 2021-05-31.