Reduced growth with increased quotas of particulate organic and inorganic carbon in the coccolithophore Emiliania huxleyi under future ocean climate change conditions

• Published in: Biogeosciences
• Main Authors: Y. Zhang, S. Collins, K. Gao
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Copernicus Publications 2020
• Subjects: Ecology; QH540-549.5; Life; QH501-531; Geology; QE1-996.5; Ocean acidification
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-17-6357-2020; https://doaj.org/article/d0a7e2fce87f4a23b28f02030fb504e5

Effects of ocean acidification and warming on marine primary producers can be modulated by other environmental factors, such as levels of nutrients and light. Here, we investigated the interactive effects of five oceanic environmental drivers ( CO 2 , temperature, light, dissolved inorganic nitrogen and phosphate) on the growth rate, particulate organic carbon (POC) and particulate inorganic carbon (PIC) quotas of the cosmopolitan coccolithophore Emiliania huxleyi . The population growth rate increased with increasing temperature (16 to 20 ∘ C ) and light intensities (60 to 240 <math xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" id="M3" display="inline" overflow="scroll" dspmath="mathml"><mrow class="unit"><mi mathvariant="normal">µ</mi><mi mathvariant="normal">mol</mi><mspace linebreak="nobreak" width="0.125em"/><mi mathvariant="normal">photons</mi><mspace linebreak="nobreak" width="0.125em"/><msup><mi mathvariant="normal">m</mi><mrow><mo>-</mo><mn mathvariant="normal">2</mn></mrow></msup><mspace width="0.125em" linebreak="nobreak"/><msup><mi mathvariant="normal">s</mi><mrow><mo>-</mo><mn mathvariant="normal">1</mn></mrow></msup></mrow></math> <svg:svg xmlns:svg="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" width="104pt" height="15pt" class="svg-formula" dspmath="mathimg" md5hash="5ccacc25bf51b8bccd52aa3591eec796"><svg:image xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" xlink:href="bg-17-6357-2020-ie00001.svg" width="104pt" height="15pt" src="bg-17-6357-2020-ie00001.png"/></svg:svg> ) but decreased with elevated p CO 2 concentrations (370 to 960 µatm ) and reduced availability of nitrate (24.3 to 7.8 µmol L −1 ) and phosphate (1.5 to 0.5 µmol L −1 ). POC quotas were predominantly enhanced by the combined effects of increased p CO 2 and decreased availability of phosphate. PIC quotas increased with decreased availability ...