Archive for January, 2021

Research reveals genetic response of ocean warming and acidification in American lobster

Published 29 January 2021 Press releases Closed
Fisherman holding a lobster

A team of researchers from the University of Maine Darling Marine Center in Walpole, Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences in East Boothbay and Maine Department of Marine Resources in West Boothbay Harbor recently published their research on the effects of ocean warming and acidification on gene expression in the earliest life stages of the American lobster.

The work was published in the scientific journal Ecology and Evolution with collaborators from the University of Prince Edward Island and Dalhousie University in Canada.

Leading the study was recent UMaine graduate student Maura Niemisto, who received her master’s degree in marine science. Co-authors on the journal article were her advisers Richard Wahle, research professor in UMaine’s School of Marine Sciences and director of the Lobster Institute, and David Fields, senior research scientist at Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences. 

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American lobster postlarvae alter gene regulation in response to ocean warming and acidification

Published 29 January 2021 Science Closed
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Anthropogenic carbon emissions released into the atmosphere is driving rapid, concurrent increases in temperature and acidity across the world’s oceans. Disentangling the interactive effects of warming and acidification on vulnerable life stages is important to our understanding of responses of marine species to climate change. This study evaluates the interactive effects of these stressors on the acute response of gene expression of postlarval American lobster (Homarus americanus), a species whose geographic range is warming and acidifying faster than most of the world’s oceans. In the context of our experiment, we found two especially noteworthy results: First, although physiological end points have consistently been shown to be more responsive to warming in similar experimental designs, our study found gene regulation to be considerably more responsive to elevated pCO2. Furthermore, the combined effect of both stressors on gene regulation was significantly greater than either stressor alone. Using a full factorial experimental design, lobsters were raised in control and elevated pCO2 concentrations (400 ppm and 1,200 ppm) and temperatures (16°C and 19°C). A transcriptome was assembled from an identified 414,517 unique transcripts. Overall, 1,108 transcripts were differentially expressed across treatments, several of which were related to stress response and shell formation. When temperature alone was elevated (19°C), larvae downregulated genes related to cuticle development; when pCO2 alone was elevated (1,200 ppm), larvae upregulated chitinase as well as genes related to stress response and immune function. The joint effects of end‐century stressors (19°C, 1,200 ppm) resulted in the upregulation of those same genes, as well as cellulase, the downregulation of calcified cuticle proteins, and a greater upregulation of genes related to immune response and function. These results indicate that changes in gene expression in larval lobster provide a mechanism to respond to stressors resulting from a rapidly changing environment.

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Impacts of hypoxic events surpass those of future ocean warming and acidification

Published 28 January 2021 Science Closed
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Over the past decades, three major challenges to marine life have emerged as a consequence of anthropogenic emissions: ocean warming, acidification and oxygen loss. While most experimental research has targeted the first two stressors, the last remains comparatively neglected. Here, we implemented sequential hierarchical mixed-model meta-analyses (721 control–treatment comparisons) to compare the impacts of oxygen conditions associated with the current and continuously intensifying hypoxic events (1–3.5 O2 mg l−1) with those experimentally yielded by ocean warming (+4 °C) and acidification (−0.4 units) conditions on the basis of IPCC projections (RCP 8.5) for 2100. In contrast to warming and acidification, hypoxic events elicited consistent negative effects relative to control biological performance—survival (–33%), abundance (–65%), development (–51%), metabolism (–33%), growth (–24%) and reproduction (–39%)—across the taxonomic groups (mollusks, crustaceans and fish), ontogenetic stages and climate regions studied. Our findings call for a refocus of global change experimental studies, integrating oxygen concentration drivers as a key factor of ocean change. Given potential combined effects, multistressor designs including gradual and extreme changes are further warranted to fully disclose the future impacts of ocean oxygen loss, warming and acidification.

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Effect of climate change on endocrine regulation of fish reproduction

Published 28 January 2021 Science Closed
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Climate change is a serious concern for aquatic environment which alters physical and chemical properties of the water causing negative impacts on the aquatic organisms including fish. Temperature alteration, ocean acidification, and hypoxia are the major factors associated with climate change, which affects the endocrine regulation of fish reproduction profoundly. Fish being poikilothermic animals, the change in environmental temperature directly affects their body temperature. Seasonal change in temperature has either fastened the spawning process or delayed the process depending upon the species and their spawning window. Ocean acidification and hypoxia had caused threat to larval survival by impairing larval behavior and sensory capacity. Often climate change shows extreme effect of the demography of fishes by leading to a non-spawning season in some species. Depending upon species, geographic location, and spawning ground, exogenous factors possess significant threat on fish reproduction. The present chapter will provide baseline information on effect of different factors of climate change such as temperature, ocean acidification, and hypoxia on fish reproduction and early ontogenesis phase of fish.

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Forecasting impacts of ocean acidification on marine communities: utilising volcanic CO2 vents as natural laboratories

Published 28 January 2021 Science Closed
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Oceans have absorbed approximately 30% of anthropogenic CO2 emissions, causing a phenomenon known as ‘ocean acidification’. With surface ocean pH changing at a rapid pace, continued uptake of CO2 is expected to decrease ocean pH by 0.3 pH units as early as 2081, accompanied by a decrease in the saturation of calcium carbonate minerals needed to produce skeletons and shells (RCP 8.5 scenario, IPCC 2019).

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Study demonstrates reductions in CO² could boost the recovery of marine life

Published 28 January 2021 Press releases Closed

World-leading experts in ocean acidification and warming monitored the effect differing ocean acidification had on different forms of algae

Making meaningful reductions in CO² emissions could help marine life damaged by increasingly acidified oceans to recover, according to new research.

An international team of scientists – world-leading experts in ocean acidification and warming from the University of Plymouth and the Shimoda Marine Research Center at the University of Tsukuba – placed a series of artificial tiles on the ocean floor off the coast of Japan.

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One-two punch against corals: how stress factors interact

Published 28 January 2021 Media coverage Closed

A new study in the prestigious journal Science Advances shows that stress from rising water temperatures reduces ability of corals to adapt to ocean acidification.

About a quarter of the carbon emissions driving global warming are absorbed by the oceans, leading to lower pH values in the water and making it more acidic. Global warming is also causing water temperature in the oceans to rise, which leads to the bleaching of coral reefs worldwide. Now, a new study reveals that increased CO2 levels in the water and ocean warming can interact to threaten reef-building corals.

The international team of authors, led by the University of California, included Professor Hildegard Westphal and Dr. Claire Reymond from the Leibniz Centre for Tropical Marine Research (ZMT), as well as Professor Justin Ries, a former fellow of the Hanse-Wissenschaftskolleg and visiting scientist at the ZMT. Furthermore, researchers from the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI) in Bremerhaven and the Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology in Bremen were involved in the study.

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Calcification does not necessarily protect articulated coralline algae from urchin grazing

Published 27 January 2021 Science Closed
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Calcification is widely thought to be an adaptation that reduces the impact of herbivory. Recent work has shown that ocean acidification may negatively impact calcification of marine organisms, including coralline red algae, which could theoretically increase the susceptibility of corallines to benthic grazers. By manipulating calcium carbonate content of three articulated coralline algal species, we demonstrated that calcification has a variable and species-specific effect on urchin grazing. For two species, Corallina vancouveriensis and Corallina officinalis var. chilensis, reductions in calcium carbonate content did not cause a significant increase in urchin grazing, raising questions about the benefit of calcification in these species. For Calliarthron tuberculosum, reduced calcium carbonate content caused an increase in urchin grazing rates but only after calcium carbonate had been reduced by more than 15%, suggesting that only dramatic shifts in calcification would make C. tuberculosum more susceptible to urchin grazing. We hypothesize that the herbivory-reducing benefits of calcification likely depend upon coralline thallus morphology. Negative impacts of ocean acidification on calcification in coralline algae may not necessarily increase herbivory rates.

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The effect of acidified seawater on shell characteristics of blood cockle, Tegillarca granosa

Published 27 January 2021 Science Closed
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Our ocean currently has been recorded to absorb about 25% of anthropogenic CO2 on an annual basis. This has estimated the global average sea surface pH to decrease from 8.2 to 8.1 units since the pre-industrial revolution and to further drop between 0.1 to 0.3 units by the end of the 21st century. This possesses a potential impact on wide range of marine organismschr(’39’) especially marine calcifiers where the CO32- is a fundamental mineral for shell and skeleton formation. In a 7-day experiment, this study investigated the effect of different pH treatments, which were pH 7.10, pH 7.50 and control pH (pH 7.81) on shell properties of the blood cockle, Tegillarca granosa. The shell weight and shell density of T. granosa was significantly reduced at pH 7.10. The smaller mean ratio for weight and density at pH 7.10 indicated there was a large difference between the initial and final value for weight and density. Furthermore, the scanning electron micrograph revealed the rough outer shell surface (periostracum) of T. granosa under decreased pH treatment (pH 7.10). However, the ocean acidification level of pH 7.50 which predicted to occur by the year 2300 showed no significant decrease in shell weight and shell density of T. granosa compared to the control pH treatment (pH 7.81).

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Long-term thermal acclimation drives adaptive physiological adjustments of a marine gastropod to reduce sensitivity to climate change

Published 27 January 2021 Science Closed
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Highlights

  • The effects of thermal history on thermal threshold and physiology were assessed.
  • Gastropods acclimated to warmer environments had higher thermal threshold (CTmax).
  • Warm-acclimated gastropods were metabolically less active than cool-acclimated ones.
  • Energy conservation appeared to be a strategy for thermal acclimation.
  • Long-term thermal acclimation may allow marine organisms to adjust to climate change.

Abstract

Ocean warming is predicted to challenge the persistence of a variety of marine organisms, especially when combined with ocean acidification. Whilst temperature affects virtually all physiological processes, the extent to which thermal history mediates the adaptive capacity of marine organisms to climate change has been largely overlooked. Using populations of a marine gastropod (Turbo undulatus) with different thermal histories (cool vs. warm), we compared their physiological adjustments following exposure (8-week) to ocean acidification and warming. Compared to cool-acclimated counterparts, we found that warm-acclimated individuals had higher thermal threshold (i.e. increased CTmax by 2°C), which was unaffected by the exposure to ocean acidification and warming. Thermal history also strongly mediated physiological effects, where warm-acclimated individuals adjusted to warming by conserving energy, suggested by lower respiration and ingestion rates, energy budget (i.e. scope for growth) and O:N ratio. After exposure to warming, warm-acclimated individuals had higher metabolic rates and greater energy budget due to boosted ingestion rates, but such compensatory feeding disappeared when combined with ocean acidification. Overall, we suggest that thermal history can be a critical mediator of physiological performance under future climatic conditions. Given the relatively gradual rate of global warming, marine organisms may be better able to adaptively adjust their physiology to future climate than what short-term experiments currently convey.

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Interrelation of quality parameters of surface waters in five tidewater glacier coves of King George Island, Antarctica

Published 27 January 2021 Media coverage Closed

Highlights

  • Repeated investigation in unprecedented proximity of 5 glacial fronts in Antarctica
  • Analysis of physical, chemical and biological water quality parameter interrelations
  • Correlations found between glacial meltwater and physicochemical parameter shifts
  • pH values shown rising with glacial meltwater presence
  • Varied biological parameter trends dependent on the distance from the glacial front

Abstract

For further understanding of glacial meltwater’s (GMW) impacts on marine environments, five coves adjacent to diverse glaciers of King George Island, Antarctica were investigated through surface measurements of water quality parameters. Measurements were conducted 49 times during January, February and March of 2019, with sampling performed in unprecedently close proximity to glacial fronts (< 50 m distance from glacier termini in each cove) to create a unique dataset. Four out of five of the coves were inspected through vertical profiling to show water-column stratification. The findings showed synchronized GMW influence causing decreases of salinity, temperature, and dissolved organic matter contents, combined with increased pH, turbidity, and dissolved oxygen values. GMW presence was most correlated with dissolved organic matter content (93% of the cases >0.5 correlation noted with either turbidity or salinity) and least correlated with water temperature (from 22% to 77% of the cases with >0.5 correlation, dependent on the cove). In contrast to previous studies, the pH values of seawater infused with GMW were higher than those of the surrounding water. GMW was shown to stay in the boundary surface layer of the water column. Phytoplankton pigment quantities depending on the localization, time and distance from the glacial termini presented varied response to GMW (positive, negative or ambivalent with hotspots of simultaneous high GMW and phytoplankton quantities). The positive response to glacial water input was more often noted in measurements of phycoerythrin (from 0 to 80% of the cases depending on the cove) rather than chlorophyll A (from 0 to 25%) and maximum quantities of both biological pigments were found at a depth of approximately 5-10 m.

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Potential local adaptation of corals at acidified and warmed Nikko Bay, Palau

Published 27 January 2021 Science Closed
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Ocean warming and acidification caused by the increase of atmospheric carbon dioxide are now thought to be major threats to coral reefs on a global scale. Here we evaluated the environmental conditions and benthic community structures in semi-closed Nikko Bay at the inner reef area in Palau, which has high p CO 2 and seawater temperature conditions with high zooxanthellate coral coverage. This bay is a highly sheltered system with organisms showing low connectivity with surrounding environments, making this bay a unique site for evaluating adaptation and acclimatization responses of organisms to warmed and acidified environments. Seawater p CO 2 /Ω arag showed strong graduation ranging from 380 to 982 µatm (Ω arag : 1.79-3.66) and benthic coverage, including soft corals and turf algae, changed along with Ω arag while hard coral coverage did not. In contrast to previous studies, net calcification was maintained in Nikko Bay even under very low mean Ω arag (2.44). Reciprocal transplantation of the dominant coral Porites cylindrica showed that the calcification rate of corals from Nikko Bay did not change when transplanted to a reference site, while calcification of reference site corals decreased when transplanted to Nikko Bay. Corals transplanted out of their origin sites also showed the highest interactive respiration (R) and lower photosynthesis (P) to respiration (P:R). The results of this study give important insights about the potential local acclimatization and adaptation capacity of corals to different environmental conditions including p CO 2 and temperature.

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Assimilating synthetic Biogeochemical-Argo and ocean colour observations into a global ocean model to inform observing system design

Published 27 January 2021 Media coverage , Science Closed
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A set of observing system simulation experiments was performed. This assessed the impact on global ocean biogeochemical reanalyses of assimilating chlorophyll from remotely sensed ocean colour and in situ observations of chlorophyll, nitrate, oxygen, and pH from a proposed array of Biogeochemical-Argo (BGC-Argo) floats. Two potential BGC-Argo array distributions were tested: one for which biogeochemical sensors are placed on all current Argo floats and one for which biogeochemical sensors are placed on a quarter of current Argo floats. Assimilating BGC-Argo data greatly improved model results throughout the water column. This included surface partial pressure of carbon dioxide (pCO2), which is an important output of reanalyses. In terms of surface chlorophyll, assimilating ocean colour effectively constrained the model, with BGC-Argo providing no added benefit at the global scale. The vertical distribution of chlorophyll was improved by assimilating BGC-Argo data. Both BGC-Argo array distributions gave benefits, with greater improvements seen with more observations. From the point of view of ocean reanalysis, it is recommended to proceed with development of BGC-Argo as a priority. The proposed array of 1000 floats will lead to clear improvements in reanalyses, with a larger array likely to bring further benefits. The ocean colour satellite observing system should also be maintained, as ocean colour and BGC-Argo will provide complementary benefits.

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Status and trends of Arctic Ocean environmental change and its impacts on marine biogeochemistry: findings from the ArCS project

Published 27 January 2021 Projects , Science Closed
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Ocean observation research theme under ArCS project, “Theme 4: Observational research on Arctic Ocean environmental changes”, aimed to elucidate the status and trends of ongoing Arctic Ocean environmental changes and to evaluate their impacts on Arctic marine ecosystem and the global climate system. For these purposes, we conducted field observations, mooring observations, laboratory experiments, numerical modeling, and international collaborative research focusing on the Pacific Arctic Region (PAR) and from Pan-Arctic point of views. As a result, we have published several scientific studies on environmental changes and their impact on the climate and ecosystem. In this manuscript, we compiled these results with some concluding remarks. We found physical environmental changes of water cycle, sea-ice and ocean conditions, heat transport, and ocean mixing in the Arctic Ocean and surrounding areas. We also examined chemical properties, carbon, cycle, and ocean acidification in the Arctic Ocean. In addition, new findings regarding impacts of sea-ice reduction to primary productivities were published. For public outreach of Arctic research, we were able to develop an educational tool (a board game named “The Arctic”) in collaboration with Themes 6 and 7.

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Seasonality and biological forcing modify the diel frequency of nearshore pH extremes in a subarctic Alaskan estuary

Published 27 January 2021 Science Closed
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Acidification in nearshore waters is influenced by a multitude of drivers that shape the dynamics of pH and carbonate chemistry variability on diurnal, seasonal, and yearly time scales. Monitoring efforts aimed at characterizing high temporal variability are lacking in many nearshore systems, particularly in high‐latitude regions such as Alaska. To rectify this, a nearshore acidification sensor array was established in the Fall of 2017 within Kachemak Bay, Alaska. Presented here are the results from the first year of these deployments, and the first record of a year‐long high‐frequency pH time series for nearshore Alaska. SeaFET™ pH and O2 sensors deployed in Jakolof Bay and Bear Cove reveal a seasonally dynamic system in which nearshore waters in these two enclosed bays transition to being predominantly net autotrophic systems for a period of 60‐plus days. High rates and durations of primary production in late spring and early summer create high pH conditions and extreme variability. Observed pH values in Jakolof Bay and Bear Cove tracked hourly rates of change on the order of 0.18 and 0.10 units, respectively. In Jakolof Bay nondirectional variability within a 12‐h period was > 1 pH unit, exposing organisms to unstable, nonstatic pH conditions on tidal and diurnal cycles. Consistent frequency patterns detailing the magnitude of pH variability was correlated to tidal and O2 signatures, elucidating the dynamics and drivers of pH variability. This first year of observations is the first step in quantifying the anthropogenic contribution to acidification for Kachemak Bay in the forthcoming years.

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Mind your methods: acidification degrades total nitrogen and stable isotopic values within calcified marine macroalgae

Published 26 January 2021 Science Closed
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Nitrogen and carbon are commonly used to determine nutrient regimes and trophic structures within marine ecosystems. Macroalgae are convenient for assessing nutrient conditions via stable isotopes and tissue nutrient levels because of their ability to absorb and integrate ambient nutrients over extended time periods. Calcified macroalgae, such as Halimeda and Udotea spp, are common constituents of tropical marine ecosystems, making them ideal candidates for nutrient-based and food web analyses. However, calcified genera require acidification to remove calcium carbonate to accurately determine δ13C and percentage of N (by weight); the overall effect of acidification on the tissue nutrients and stable isotopes of calcified genera is unresolved. Individuals of Halimeda kanaloana (n = 10) and Udotea geppiorum (n = 9) were collected from Maui, O‘ahu, and Lāna‘i. Each specimen was split into two samples and either decalcified using liquid-phase HCl (acidified) or left unaltered (control). We found that liquid-phase HCl acidification resulted in significantly lower percentage of N in both Halimeda kanaloana and Udotea geppiorum. Whereas δ13C values in acidified samples of both species were predictably lowered, the δ15N in acidified U. geppiorum was significantly increased. Acidification may have unpredictable consequences on both the percentage of nutrients in calcified algal tissue and their δ15N, suggesting that the use of acidification in calcified algal nutrient studies may produce erroneous conclusions. Analysing two sets of samples as calcified (for δ15N) and acidified (for δ13C) would eliminate these errors. However, the use of calcified macroalgae to assess percentage of N should be avoided.

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Coastal Ocean Data Analysis Product in North America (CODAP-NA) – An internally consistent data product for discrete inorganic carbon, oxygen, and nutrients on the U.S. North American ocean margins

Published 26 January 2021 Projects , Science Closed
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Internally-consistent, quality-controlled data products play a very important role in promoting regional to global research efforts to understand societal vulnerabilities to ocean acidification (OA). However, there are currently no such data products for the coastal ocean where most of the OA-susceptible commercial and recreational fisheries and aquaculture industries are located. In this collaborative effort, we compiled, quality controlled (QC), and synthesized two decades of discrete measurements of inorganic carbon system parameters, oxygen, and nutrient chemistry data from the U.S. North American continental shelves, to generate a data product called the Coastal Ocean Data Analysis Product for North America (CODAP-NA). There are few deep-water (> 1500 m) sampling locations in the current data product. As a result, cross-over analyses, which rely on comparisons between measurements on different cruises in the stable deep ocean, could not form the basis for cruise-to-cruise adjustments. For this reason, care was taken in the selection of data sets to include in this initial release of CODAP-NA, and only data sets from laboratories with known quality assurance practices were included. New consistency checks and outlier detections were used to QC the data. Future releases of this CODAP-NA product will use this core data product as the basis for secondary QC. We worked closely with the investigators who collected and measured these data during the QC process. This version of the CODAP-NA is comprised of 3,292 oceanographic profiles from 61 research cruises covering all continental shelves of North America, from Alaska to Mexico in the west and from Canada to the Caribbean in the east. Data for 14 variables (temperature; salinity; dissolved oxygen concentration; dissolved inorganic carbon concentration; total alkalinity; pH on the Total Scale; carbonate ion concentration; fugacity of carbon dioxide; and concentrations of silicate, phosphate, nitrate, nitrite, nitrate plus nitrite, and ammonium) have been subjected to extensive QC. CODAP-NA is available as a merged data product (Excel, CSV, MATLAB, and NetCDF, https://doi.org/10.25921/531n-c230, https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/data/oceans/ncei/ocads/metadata/0219960.html) (Jiang et al., 2020). The original cruise data have also been updated with data providers’ consent and summarized in a table with links to NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) archives (https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/access/ocean-acidification-data-stewardship-oads/synthesis/NAcruises.html).

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Ocean acidification and its effects on marine wildlife

Published 26 January 2021 Science Closed

Ocean acidification is the process in which carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere absorbs in water to produce calcium carbonate. With the rising CO2 levels in the atmosphere, and the ocean being a carbon sink, ocean acidification remains a threat to the various forms of marine wildlife, specifically, the shark population. The effects of ocean acidification have the potential to damage shark physiology by altering their blood chemistry and overall neurology. This could result in the imbalance of the ocean’s natural order and food chain due to the distress from these apex predators. When analyzing the experiments that have been done to test the effects of acidity on sharks, the results showed that there was a significant decrease in oxygen to the brain. These experiments also revealed the dangers that ocean acidification could have on marine species with exoskeletons. Exoskeletons are able to easily dissolve when exposed to large amounts of calcium carbonate -the chemical made from the mixture of CO2 and seawater. – Some important species that possess exoskeleton are coral reefs. Coral reefs are known to be the habitats for an abundance of species, including sharks. When it comes to determining who is responsible for the rise of ocean acidification, it has been declared a global problem that requires a mass amount of global effort to reverse.

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Assessing the impact of static and fluctuating ocean acidification on the behavior of Amphiprion percula

Published 26 January 2021 Science Closed
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Coral reef organisms are exposed to both an increasing magnitude of pCO2, and natural fluctuations on a diel scale. For coral reef fishes, one of the most profound effects of ocean acidification is the impact on ecologically important behaviors. Previous behavioral research has primarily been conducted under static pCO2 conditions and have recently come under criticism. Recent studies have provided evidence that the negative impacts on behavior may be reduced under more environmentally realistic, fluctuating conditions. We investigated the impact of both present and future day, static (500 and 1000 μatm) and diel fluctuating (500 ± 200 and 1000 ± 200 μatm) pCO2 on the lateralization and chemosensory behavior of juvenile anemonefish, Amphiprion percula. Our static experimental comparisons support previous findings that under elevated pCO2, fish become un-lateralized and lose the ability to discriminate olfactory cues. Diel-fluctuating pCO2 may aid in mitigating the severity of some behavioral abnormalities such as the chemosensory response, where a preference for predator cues was significantly reduced under a future diel-fluctuating pCO2 regime. This research aids in ground truthing earlier findings and contributes to our growing knowledge of the role of fluctuating conditions.

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Researchers collaborate to study impact of ocean acidification on Northeast fisheries, develop management tools

Published 26 January 2021 Projects , Web sites and blogs Closed

A multi-institution team led by UConn researchers is using computer modeling and biological research to help northeast scallop fisheries facing the threat of ocean acidification.

woman looking at a map of scallops off the east coast
(Yesenia Carrero /UConn Illustration)

A multidisciplinary, multi-institution effort is bringing together computer modeling, biological, and social science research to inform management policies for Northeast scallop fisheries facing the threat of ocean acidification.

The $1,034,822 project sponsored by the National Ocean and Atmospheric Administration’s Ocean Acidification Program includes researchers from the University of Connecticut, NOAA’s Northeast Fisheries Science Center (NEFSC), Commercial Fisheries Research Foundation (CFRF), and Rutgers University.

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