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1. Effects of year‐long exposure to elevated pCO₂ on the metabolism of back reef and fore reef communities

   https://doi.org/10.1002/lno.12504  

   Edmunds, Peter J.; Doo, Steve S.; Carpenter, Robert C. (January 2024, Limnology and Oceanography)

   Abstract The implications of ocean acidification are acute for calcifying organisms, notably tropical reef corals, for which accretion generally is depressed and dissolution enhanced at reduced seawater pH. We describe year‐long experiments in which back reef and fore reef (17‐m depth) communities from Moorea, French Polynesia, were incubated outdoors under pCO₂regimes reflecting endpoints of representative concentration pathways (RCPs) expected by the end the century. Incubations were completed in three to four flumes (5.0 × 0.3 m, 500 L) in which seawater was refreshed and circulated at 0.1 m s⁻¹, and the response of the communities was evaluated monthly by measurements of net community calcification (NCC) and net community productivity (NCP). For both communities, NCC (but not NCP) was affected by treatments and time, with NCC declining with increasing pCO₂, and for the fore reef, becoming negative (i.e., dissolution was occurring) at the highest pCO₂(1067–1433μatm, RCP8.5). There was scant evidence of community adjustment to reduce the negative effects of ocean acidification, and inhibition of NCC intensified in the back reef as the abundance of massivePoritesspp. declined. These results highlight the risks of dissolution under ocean acidification for coral reefs and suggest these effects will be most acute in fore reef habitats. Without signs of amelioration of the negative effects of ocean acidification during year‐long experiments, it is reasonable to expect that the future of coral reefs in acidic seas can be predicted from their current known susceptibility to ocean acidification. 

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2. Environmental memory gained from exposure to extreme pCO ₂ variability promotes coral cellular acid–base homeostasis

   https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2022.0941  

   Brown, Kristen T.; Mello-Athayde, Matheus A.; Sampayo, Eugenia M.; Chai, Aaron; Dove, Sophie; Barott, Katie L. (September 2022, Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences)

   Ocean acidification is a growing threat to coral growth and the accretion of coral reef ecosystems. Corals inhabiting environments that already endure extreme diel pCO 2 fluctuations, however, may represent acidification-resilient populations capable of persisting on future reefs. Here, we examined the impact of pCO 2 variability on the reef-building coral Pocillopora damicornis originating from reefs with contrasting environmental histories (variable reef flat versus stable reef slope) following reciprocal exposure to stable (218 ± 9) or variable (911 ± 31) diel pCO 2 amplitude (μtam) in aquaria over eight weeks. Endosymbiont density, photosynthesis and net calcification rates differed between origins but not treatment, whereas primary calcification (extension) was affected by both origin and acclimatization to novel pCO 2 conditions. At the cellular level, corals from the variable reef flat exhibited less intracellular pH (pHi) acidosis and faster pHi recovery rates in response to experimental acidification stress (pH 7.40) than corals originating from the stable reef slope, suggesting environmental memory gained from lifelong exposure to pCO 2 variability led to an improved ability to regulate acid–base homeostasis. These results highlight the role of cellular processes in maintaining acidification resilience and suggest that prior exposure to pCO 2 variability may promote more acidification-resilient coral populations in a changing climate. 

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3. Proxy Calibrations in the Cold-Water Coral Desmophyllum dianthus: Nutrient Concentrations in Antarctic Intermediate Water

   Ko, S.: Sherrell; Pelejero, C.; Martínez-Dios, A.; Lucas, A.: Calvo; Kozdon, R.; Bostock, H.; Tracey, D.M. (December 2020, AGU Fall Meeting 2020)

   null (Ed.)

   Element-calcium ratios in the skeleton of cold-water coral Desmophyllum dianthus represent potential archives for paleo-reconstruction of several ocean properties including temperature and nutrient concentrations. However, relatively large uncertainties in these proxy calibrations and heterogeneity in the skeletal composition have limited its application to date. We address these issues by analyzing corals cultured under systematically varied seawater conditions (phosphate, barium, temperature, pH, feeding frequency) over a two-year period, and refine the calibration of P/Ca, Ba/Ca, U/Ca, and Li/Mg proxies for seawater phosphate, barium, carbonate ion concentration, and temperature, respectively. Composition of the corals is determined using laser-ablation ICPMS, with robust plasma conditions established using the Normalized Argon Index [1], and proxy element incorporation is evaluated for influences of temperature, pH, and feeding frequency. The aragonite precipitated during the stages of the culturing experiment is identified using fluorescent and geochemical labelling of the skeleton through calcein and lead isotopes, respectively. This approach allows us to resolve monthly and annual increments in these slow growing (1-2mm/year) organisms, and also to evaluate the influence of calcification rate on the composition. We address the issue of heterogeneity by adapting methods for LA-ICPMS imaging to create macroscale images to reveal the full pattern of skeletogenesis and related compositional variability of D. dianthus. Preliminary images suggest that heterogeneity stems from the asymmetric precipitation of aragonite, and from centers of calcification (also known as early mineralization zones) that complicate the interpretation of elemental signals throughout the skeleton, but also help to identify new skeletal regions suitable for proxy measurement. Finally, we also discuss the role of endolithic organisms in some of these specimens. [1] Fietzke, J. & Frische, M. (2016), J. Anal. At. Spectrom. 31, 234–244. 

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4. Coral growth along a natural gradient of seawater temperature, pH, and oxygen in a nearshore seagrass bed on Dongsha Atoll, Taiwan

   https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0312263  

   Pezner, Ariel K; Courtney, Travis A; Chou, Wen-Chen; Chu, Hui-Chuan; Frable, Benjamin W; Kekuewa, Samuel_A H; Soong, Keryea; Wei, Yi; Andersson, Andreas J (October 2024, PLOS ONE)

   Laruelle, Goulven G (Ed.)

   Coral reefs are facing threats from a variety of global change stressors, including ocean warming, acidification, and deoxygenation. It has been hypothesized that growing corals near primary producers such as macroalgae or seagrass may help to ameliorate acidification and deoxygenation stress, however few studies have explored this effect in situ. Here, we investigated differences in coral growth rates across a natural gradient in seawater temperature, pH, and dissolved oxygen (DO) variability in a nearshore seagrass bed on Dongsha Atoll, Taiwan, South China Sea. We observed strong spatial gradients in temperature (5°C), pH (0.29 pH units), and DO (129 μmol O₂kg^-1) across the 1-kilometer wide seagrass bed. Similarly, diel variability recorded by an autonomous sensor in the shallow seagrass measured diel ranges in temperature, pH, and DO of up to 2.6°C, 0.55, and 204 μmol O₂kg^-1, respectively. Skeletal cores collected from 15 massivePoritescorals growing in the seagrass bed at 4 sites revealed no significant differences in coral calcification rates between sites along the gradients. However, significant differences in skeletal extension rate and density suggest that the dynamic temperature, pH, and/or DO variability may have influenced these properties. The lack of differences in coral growth between sites may be because favorable calcification conditions during the day (high temperature, pH, and DO) were proportionally balanced by unfavorable conditions during the night (low temperature, pH, and DO). Alternatively, other factors were simply more important in controlling coral calcification and/or corals were acclimated to the prevailing conditions at each site. 

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5. Ocean acidification effects on in situ coral reef metabolism

   https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-019-48407-7  

   Doo, Steve S.; Edmunds, Peter J.; Carpenter, Robert C. (August 2019, Scientific Reports)

   Abstract The Anthropocene climate has largely been defined by a rapid increase in atmospheric CO_2,causing global climate change (warming) and ocean acidification (OA, a reduction in oceanic pH). OA is of particular concern for coral reefs, as the associated reduction in carbonate ion availability impairs biogenic calcification and promotes dissolution of carbonate substrata. While these trends ultimately affect ecosystem calcification, scaling experimental analyses of the response of organisms to OA to consider the response of ecosystems to OA has proved difficult. The benchmark of ecosystem-level experiments to study the effects of OA is provided through Free Ocean CO₂Enrichment (FOCE), which we use in the present analyses for a 21-d experiment on the back reef of Mo’orea, French Polynesia. Two natural coral reef communities were incubatedin situ, with one exposed to ambient pCO₂(393 µatm), and one to high pCO₂(949 µatm). Our results show a decrease in 24-h net community calcification (NCC) under high pCO₂, and a reduction in nighttime NCC that attenuated and eventually reversed over 21-d. This effect was not observed in daytime NCC, and it occurred without any effect of high pCO₂on net community production (NCP). These results contribute to previous studies on ecosystem-level responses of coral reefs to the OA conditions projected for the end of the century, and they highlight potential attenuation of high pCO₂effects on nighttime net community calcification. 

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