Ocean Acidification and Direct Interactions Affect Coral, Macroalga, and Sponge Growth in the Florida Keys

Coral reef community composition, function, and resilience have been altered by natural and anthropogenic stressors. Future anthropogenic ocean and coastal acidification (together termed “acidification”) may exacerbate this reef degradation. Accurately predicting reef resilience requires an understanding of not only direct impacts of acidification on marine organisms but also indirect effects on species interactions that influence community composition and reef ecosystem functions. In this 28-day experiment, we assessed the effect of acidification on coral–algal, coral–sponge, and algal–sponge interactions. We quantified growth of corals (Siderastrea radians), fleshy macroalgae (Dictyota spp.), and sponges (Pione lampa) that were exposed to local summer ambient (603 μatm) or elevated (1105 μatm) pCO2 seawater. These species are common to hard-bottom communities, including shallow reefs, in the Florida Keys. Each individual was maintained in isolation or paired with another organism. Coral growth (net calcification) was similar across seawater pCO2 and interaction treatments. Fleshy macroalgae had increased biomass when paired with a sponge but lost biomass when growing in isolation or paired with coral. Sponges grew more volumetrically in the elevated seawater pCO2 treatment (i.e., under acidification conditions). Although these results are limited in temporal and spatial scales due to the experimental design, they do lend support to the hypothesis that acidification may facilitate a shift towards increased sponge and macroalgae abundance by directly benefiting sponge growth which in turn may provide more dissolved inorganic nitrogen to macroalgae in the Florida Keys.

The effect of ocean acidification on tropical coral calcification: insights from calcification fluid DIC chemistry

Ocean acidification typically reduces calcification in tropical marine corals but the mechanism for this process is not understood. We use skeletal boron geochemistry (B/Ca and δ11B) to reconstruct the calcification fluid DIC of corals cultured over both high and low seawater pCO2 (180, 400 and 750 μatm). We observe strong positive correlations between calcification fluid pH and concentrations of the DIC species potentially implicated in aragonite precipitation (be they CO32 , HCO3- or HCO3-+CO32 ). Similarly, with the exception of one outlier, the fluid concentrations of precipitating DIC species are strongly positively correlated with coral calcification rate. Corals cultured at high seawater pCO2 usually have low calcification fluid pH and low concentrations of precipitating DIC, suggesting that a reduction in DIC substrate at the calcification site is responsible for decreased calcification. The outlier coral maintained high pHCF and DICCF at high seawater pCO2 but exhibited a reduced calcification rate indicating that the coral has a limited energy budget to support proton extrusion from the calcification fluid and meet other calcification demands. We find no evidence that increasing seawater pCO2 enhances diffusion of CO2 into the calcification site. Instead the overlying [CO2] available to diffuse into the calcification site appears broadly comparable between seawater pCO2 treatments, implying that metabolic activity (respiration and photosynthesis) generates a similar [CO2] in the vicinity of the calcification site regardless of seawater pCO2.