Seaweed Responses to Ocean Acidification

• Main Authors: Roleda, MY, Hurd, CL
• Format: Book Part
• Language: English
• Published: Springer 2012
• Subjects: Environmental Sciences; Ecological Applications; Ecological Impacts of Climate Change; Ocean acidification
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-28451-9_19; http://ecite.utas.edu.au/91457

Ocean acidification (OA) is the decline in seawater pH caused by the sustained absorption by the oceansof anthropogenically produced atmospheric CO2. The consequences of OA to seaweed-based coastalecosystems range from organismal to community levels of biological organization. Organismal responsescan be species specific, depending on their carbon physiology, mode of calcification, and morphology(functional form). At the community scale, changes in community structure and function can have severeconsequences on trophic dynamics. Biologically driven fluctuations in seawater carbonate chemistry areobserved from micro- (diffusion boundary layer, DBL) to mesoscales (e.g., within a kelp forest), and suchfluctuations may be exacerbated by OA. The synergistic effects of elevated CO2 with other human-inducedenvironmental stressors (e.g., warming, eutrophication, and UVR) could make the primary producers ofcoastal ecosystems vulnerable to global climate change; some species may perform better than othersunder greenhouse conditions, leading to community phase shifts.