Sand sample from Elafonisos, Greece, with abundant A. lobifera shells, as well as shells and shell fragments from snails and other organisms. Credit: Olga Koukousioura
Pamela Hallock, a biogeological oceanographer and distinguished university professor at the University of South Florida College of Marine Science, typically finds little comfort in climate change.
Hallock has spent her career studying the ocean. She leads USF’s Reef Indicators Lab and is no stranger to the impacts of human activities on marine environments.
Still, she couldn’t help but notice a bright spot in the results of her recent paper on a species of single-celled organisms called foraminifera (forams), published in the Journal of Foraminiferal Research.
“These forams have been increasing in numbers in suitable environments,” Hallock said. “Now they’re so prolific that they’re becoming an economic resource in regions with warm waters and high alkalinity because they’re building beaches.”
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Amphistegina lobifera. Credit: Olga Koukousioura
“The rate at which these forams are building beaches in the region is comparable to the rate of sea level rise,” Hallock said.
There’s reason to believe A. lobifera may continue to flourish in a warming world replete with atmospheric CO2. The genus Amphistegina emerged on Earth during a period of higher atmospheric CO2 concentrations, Hallock noted in her paper, and warm waters with elevated alkalinity increase their rates of metabolism and shell formation.
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The recent study offers a unique perspective about the impacts of humans on marine environments, and vice versa.
As Hallock and her co-authors state in the study, “Might this return of prolific shallow-water carbonate production ultimately prove at least locally beneficial as climate change progresses?”
University of South Florida (via Phys.org), 13 September 2024. Press release.
