Seawater carbonate chemistry and individual or group behaviour of a temperate damselfish

• Main Authors: Kwan, Garfield Tsz, Hamilton, Trevor James, Tresguerres, Martin
• Format: Dataset
• Language: English
• Published: PANGAEA 2023
• Subjects: Alkalinity; total; standard error; Animalia; Aragonite saturation state; Behaviour; Bicarbonate ion; Calcite saturation state; Calculated using CO2SYS; Calculated using seacarb after Nisumaa et al. (2010); Carbon; inorganic; dissolved; Carbonate ion; Carbonate system computation flag; Carbon dioxide; Chordata; Chromis punctipinnis; Coast and continental shelf; Containers and aquaria (20-1000 L or < 1 m**2); Distance; Fugacity of carbon dioxide (water) at sea surface temperature (wet air); Laboratory experiment; Length; Mass; Month; Nekton; North Pacific; OA-ICC; Ocean Acidification International Coordination Centre; Other; Partial pressure of carbon dioxide (water) at sea surface temperature (wet air); Pelagos; pH; Salinity; Single species; Species; unique identification; Pacific; Ocean acidification
• Online Access: https://doi.pangaea.de/10.1594/PANGAEA.958996; https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.958996

Open ocean surface CO2 levels are projected to reach approximately 800 µatm, and ocean pH to decrease by approximately 0.3 units by the year 2100 due to anthropogenic CO2 emissions and the subsequent process of ocean acidification (OA). When exposed to these CO2/pH values, several fish species display abnormal behaviour in laboratory tests, an effect proposed to be linked to altered neuronal GABAA receptor function. Juvenile blacksmith (Chromis punctipinnis) are social fish that regularly experience CO2/pH fluctuations through kelp forest diurnal primary production and upwelling events, so we hypothesized that they might be resilient to OA. Blacksmiths were exposed to control conditions (pH 7.92; pCO2 540 µatm), constant acidification (pH 7.71; pCO2 921 µatm) and oscillating acidification (pH 7.91, pCO2 560 µatm (day), pH 7.70, pCO2 955 µatm (night)), and caught and tested in two seasons of the year when the ocean temperature was different: winter (16.5 ± 0.1°C) and summer (23.1 ± 0.1°C). Neither constant nor oscillating CO2-induced acidification affected blacksmith individual light/dark preference, inter-individual distance in a shoal or the shoal's response to a novel object, suggesting that blacksmiths are tolerant to projected future OA conditions. However, blacksmiths tested during the winter demonstrated significantly higher dark preference in the individual light/dark preference test, thus confirming season and/or water temperature as relevant factors to consider in behavioural tests.