Environmental and chemical measurements, and coral calcification rates in Bermuda from 2010 to 2012

• Main Authors: Courtney, Travis A, Lebrato, Mario, Bates, Nicolas R, Collins, Andrew, de Putron, Samantha J, Garley, Rebecca, Johnson, Rod, Molinero, Juan-Carlos, Noyes, Timothy J, Sabine, Christopher L, Andersson, Andreas J, Yang, Yan
• Format: Dataset
• Language: English
• Published: PANGAEA 2017
• Subjects: Alkalinity; total; Animalia; Aragonite saturation state; Benthic animals; Benthos; Bicarbonate ion; Brightness; Calcification/Dissolution; Calcification rate; Calcite saturation state; Calculated using seacarb after Nisumaa et al. (2010); Carbon; inorganic; dissolved; Carbonate ion; Carbonate system computation flag; Carbon dioxide; Chlorophyll a; Cnidaria; Coast and continental shelf; Crescent_Reef; Date; Diploria labyrinthiformis; Entire community; Event label; EXP; Experiment; Field observation; Fugacity of carbon dioxide (water) at sea surface temperature (wet air); Hog_Reef; LATITUDE; LONGITUDE; Month; North Atlantic; OA-ICC; Ocean Acidification International Coordination Centre; Partial pressure of carbon dioxide (water) at sea surface temperature (wet air); pH; Porites astreoides; Rocky-shore community; Salinity; Score on PC1; Single species; Temperate; Temperature; water; Type; Years; Ocean acidification
• Online Access: https://doi.pangaea.de/10.1594/PANGAEA.892130; https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.892130

Modern reef-building corals sustain a wide range of ecosystem services because of their ability to build calcium carbonate reef systems. The influence of environmental variables on coral calcification rates has been extensively studied, but our understanding of their relative importance is limited by the absence of in situ observations and the ability to decouple the interactions between different properties. We show that temperature is the primary driver of coral colony (Porites astreoides and Diploria labyrinthiformis) and reef-scale calcification rates over a 2-year monitoring period from the Bermuda coral reef. On the basis of multimodel climate simulations (Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5) and assuming sufficient coral nutrition, our results suggest that P. astreoides and D. labyrinthiformis coral calcification rates in Bermuda could increase throughout the 21st century as a result of gradual warming predicted under a minimum CO2 emissions pathway [representative concentration pathway (RCP) 2.6] with positive 21st-century calcification rates potentially maintained under a reduced CO2 emissions pathway (RCP 4.5). These results highlight the potential benefits of rapid reductions in global anthropogenic CO2 emissions for 21st-century Bermuda coral reefs and the ecosystem services they provide.