This hands-on lab allows students to explore concepts and quantify effects of ocean acidification. Many laboratory activities simplify ocean acidification through computer simulations or dripping acid on nonliving materials (e.g., sea shells) but do not provide adequate opportunities for students to measure, inquire, or see real consequences for living organisms. Thus, we developed this low-cost, easily accessible experiment to imitate ocean acidification on living, calcifying organisms.
Continue reading ‘Hands-on exploration of ocean acidification with a living calcifier’Archive Page 240
Hands-on exploration of ocean acidification with a living calcifier
Published 14 June 2021 Science ClosedTags: algae, biological response, calcification, education, laboratory, methods
Digital summer school – From bones to oceans and space: the untold stories of biomineralization
Published 14 June 2021 Events Closed7 – 9 July 2021
Deadline for registration and abstract submission : June 18, 2021
9 July, 11.00-11.05 (Part 2): “Ocean acidification and its impact on biomineralizing organisms, Alex Venn, Monaco”
Organizing Committee:
- Claudine Blin, LP2M UMR7370, CNRS-UCA, Nice, France
- Sylvie Tambutté, Centre Scientifique de Monaco, Monaco
- Georges Lefthériotis, LP2M UMR7370, CNRS-UCA, Nice, France
Support:
COST Action EuroSoftCalcNet
Description:
Biomineralization is a highly complex and active biological process that takes into account different aspects, including molecular, cellular and integrative biology, evolution, clinical and therapeutic aspects up to societal and environmental facts. Biomineralization is also a multidisciplinary field comprising biology, chemistry, physics, medicine and environmental sciences. This Digital Summer School is intended to unveil this interdisciplinarity and will give a unique opportunity to young research fellows who wish to enter this field of research to interact with internationally renowned experts.
This Summer School is open to young scientists (PhD, post-docs and early scientists). The program is built on 3 days of courses, interactive workshops, round tables and networking. There will be time for students to present their research projects and receive feedback from the experts.
The aim of this Summer School is to promote general knowledge on all aspects of biomineralization. The course starts with fundamentals aspects of biomineralization, followed by a varied program that integrates clinical, societal and environmental aspects.
Continuous monitoring and future projection of ocean warming, acidification, and deoxygenation on the subarctic coast of Hokkaido, Japan
Published 11 June 2021 Science ClosedTags: biogeochemistry, chemistry, field, North Pacific
As the ocean absorbs excessive anthropogenic CO2 and ocean acidification proceeds, it is thought to be harder for marine calcifying organisms, such as shellfish, to form their skeletons and shells made of calcium carbonate. Recent studies have suggested that various marine organisms, both calcifiers and non-calcifiers, will be affected adversely by ocean warming and deoxygenation. However, regardless of their effects on calcifiers, the spatiotemporal variability of parameters affecting ocean acidification and deoxygenation has not been elucidated in the subarctic coasts of Japan. This study conducted the first continuous monitoring and future projection of physical and biogeochemical parameters of the subarctic coast of Hokkaido, Japan. Our results show that the seasonal change in biogeochemical parameters, with higher pH and dissolved oxygen (DO) concentration in winter than in summer, was primarily regulated by water temperature. The daily fluctuations, which were higher in the daytime than at night, were mainly affected by daytime photosynthesis by primary producers and respiration by marine organisms at night. Our projected results suggest that, without ambitious commitment to reducing CO2 and other greenhouse gas emissions, such as by following the Paris Agreement, the impact of ocean warming and acidification on calcifiers along subarctic coasts will become serious, exceeding the critical level of high temperature for 3 months in summer and being close to the critical level of low saturation state of calcium carbonate for 2 months in mid-winter, respectively, by the end of this century. The impact of deoxygenation might often be prominent assuming that the daily fluctuation in DO concentration in the future is similar to that at present. The results also suggest the importance of adaptation strategies by local coastal industries, especially fisheries, such as modifying aquaculture styles.
Continue reading ‘Continuous monitoring and future projection of ocean warming, acidification, and deoxygenation on the subarctic coast of Hokkaido, Japan’The variable circulation and carbonate chemistry of ocean upwelling systems
Published 11 June 2021 Science ClosedTags: Antarctic, chemistry, North Pacific
Ocean upwelling is a process in which winds drive deep waters to the surface ocean. The biogeochemical state of these waters causes upwelling regions to have some of the strongest air-sea fluxes of carbon dioxide (CO2) and most productive fisheries in the global oceans. In this dissertation, I use Earth System models to investigate the variability and projected impacts of climate change on upwelling systems. I first use the Community Earth System Model Large Ensemble (CESM-LE) to project the impacts of climate change on upwelling in the California Current. The CESM-LE provides an ensemble of potential trajectories of the climate system that differ due to internal climate variability. I find that upwelling is expected to weaken over the next century in the summer and intensify poleward in the spring due to anthropogenic climate change. Next, I use the CESM-LE to highlight the role of internal climate variability in modulating air-sea CO2 fluxes in the major Eastern Boundary Upwelling Systems (EBUS). I identify the major mode of internal variability that influences air-sea CO2 flux in each EBUS. I then quantify how the given mode of variability modifies local conditions, which in turn leads to the anomalous air-sea CO2 fluxes. Following this, I use a version of the CESM-LE that is configured for climate prediction to examine predictability of ocean acidification in the California Current. I find that our system makes skillful forecasts of surface pH out to fourteen months relative to observations and has a potential ceiling of skillful prediction out to five years in some regions. Finally, I use the Model for Prediction Across Scales Ocean (MPAS-O) to investigate the pathways over which carbon upwells in the Southern Ocean. I seed a high-resolution version of MPAS-O with 1,000,000 Lagrangian floats and find that regions with complex ocean topography have a disproportionate influence on bringing carbon-rich waters from the deep Southern Ocean to the surface. The results of this dissertation highlight the value of using ensemble methods and the Lagrangian perspective in Earth System models to better understand the dynamic and variable biogeochemistry in ocean upwelling systems.
Continue reading ‘The variable circulation and carbonate chemistry of ocean upwelling systems’Combined effects of climate change and the herbicide diuron on the coral Acropora millepora
Published 11 June 2021 Science ClosedTags: biological response, calcification, corals, Indian, laboratory, multiple factors, photosynthesis, physiology, toxicants
The Great Barrier Reef (GBR) is threatened by climate change and local pressures, including contaminants in nearshore habitats. This study investigated the combined effects of a GBR-relevant contaminant, the herbicide diuron, under current and two future climate scenarios on the coral Acropora millepora. All physiological responses tested (effective quantum yield (ΔF/Fm′), photosynthesis, calcification rate) were negatively affected with increasing concentrations of diuron. Interactive effects between diuron and climate were observed for all responses; however, climate had no significant effect on ΔF/Fm′ or calcification rates. Photosynthesis was negatively affected as the climate scenarios were adjusted from ambient (28.1 °C, pCO2 = 397 ppm) to RCP8.5 2050 (29.1 °C, pCO2 = 680 ppm) and 2100 (30.2 °C, pCO2 = 858 ppm) with EC50 values declining from 19.4 to 10.6 and 2.6 μg L−1 diuron in turn. These results highlight the likelihood that water quality guideline values may need to be adjusted as the climate changes.
Continue reading ‘Combined effects of climate change and the herbicide diuron on the coral Acropora millepora’Two offshore coral species show greater acclimatization capacity to environmental variation than nearshore counterparts in southern Belize
Published 11 June 2021 Science ClosedTags: biological response, calcification, chemistry, corals, field, morphology, mortality, North Pacific, physiology, protists
Coral reefs are enduring decline due to the intensifying impacts of anthropogenic global change. This widespread decline has resulted in increased efforts to identify resilient coral populations and develop novel restoration strategies. Paramount in these efforts is the need to understand how environmental variation and thermal history affect coral physiology and resilience. Here, we assess the acclimatization capacity of Siderastrea siderea and Pseudodiploria strigosa corals via a 17-month reciprocal transplant experiment between nearshore and offshore reefs on the Belize Mesoamerican Barrier Reef System. These nearshore reefs are more turbid, eutrophic, warm, and thermally variable than offshore reefs. All corals exhibited some evidence of acclimatization after transplantation. Corals transplanted from nearshore to offshore calcified slower than in their native habitat, especially S. siderea corals which exhibited 60% mortality and little to no net growth over the duration of the 17-month study. Corals transplanted from offshore to nearshore calcified faster than in their native habitat with 96% survival. Higher host tissue δ15N in nearshore corals indicated that increased heterotrophic opportunity or nitrogen sources between nearshore and offshore reefs likely promoted elevated calcification rates nearshore and may facilitate adaptation in nearshore populations to such conditions over time. These results demonstrate that offshore populations of S. siderea and P. strigosa possess the acclimatization capacity to survive in warmer and more turbid nearshore conditions, but that local adaptation to native nearshore conditions may hinder the plasticity of nearshore populations, thereby limiting their utility in coral restoration activities outside of their native habitat in the short term.
Continue reading ‘Two offshore coral species show greater acclimatization capacity to environmental variation than nearshore counterparts in southern Belize’Impact of increasing carbon dioxide on dinitrogen and carbon fixation rates under oligotrophic conditions and simulated upwelling
Published 11 June 2021 Science ClosedTags: community composition, field, light, mesocosms, molecular biology, multiple factors, nitrogen fixation, North Atlantic, otherprocess
Dinitrogen (N2) fixation is a major source of bioavailable nitrogen to oligotrophic ocean communities. Yet, we have limited understanding how ongoing climate change could alter N2 fixation. Most of our understanding is based on short-term laboratory experiments conducted on individual N2-fixing species whereas community-level approaches are rare. In this longer-term in situ mesocosm study, we aimed to improve our understanding on the role of rising atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) and simulated deep water upwelling on N2 and carbon (C) fixation rates in a natural oligotrophic plankton community. We deployed nine mesocosms in the subtropical North Atlantic Ocean and enriched seven of these with CO2 to yield a range of treatments (partial pressure of CO2, pCO2 = 352–1025 μatm). We measured rates of N2 and C fixation in both light and dark incubations over the 55-day study period. High pCO2 negatively impacted light and dark N2 fixation rates in the oligotrophic phase before simulated upwelling, while the effect reversed in the light N2 fixation rates in the bloom decay phase after added nutrients were consumed. Dust deposition and simulated upwelling of nutrient-rich deep water increased N2 fixation rates and nifH gene abundances of selected clades including the unicellular diazotrophic cyanobacterium clade UCYN-B. Elevated pCO2 increased C fixation rates in the decay phase. We conclude that elevated pCO2 and pulses of upwelling have pronounced effects on diazotrophy and primary producers, and upwelling and dust deposition modify the pCO2 effect in natural assemblages.
Continue reading ‘Impact of increasing carbon dioxide on dinitrogen and carbon fixation rates under oligotrophic conditions and simulated upwelling’A pronounced spike in ocean productivity triggered by the Chicxulub impact
Published 11 June 2021 Science ClosedTags: biogeochemistry, chemistry, North Pacific, paleo
Abstract
There is increasing evidence linking the mass-extinction event at the Cretaceous-Paleogene boundary to an asteroid impact near Chicxulub, Mexico. Here we use model simulations to explore the combined effect of sulfate aerosols, carbon dioxide and dust from the impact on the oceans and the marine biosphere in the immediate aftermath of the impact. We find a strong temperature decrease, a brief algal bloom caused by nutrients from both the deep ocean and the projectile, and moderate surface ocean acidification. Comparing the modeled longer-term post-impact warming and changes in carbon isotopes with empirical evidence points to a substantial release of carbon from the terrestrial biosphere. Overall, our results shed light on the decades to centuries after the Chicxulub impact which are difficult to resolve with proxy data.
Plain Language Summary
The sudden disappearance of the dinosaurs and many other species during the end-Cretaceous mass extinction 66 million years ago marks one of the most profound events in the history of life on Earth. The impact of a large asteroid near Chicxulub, Mexico, is increasingly recognised as the trigger of this extinction, causing global darkness and a pronounced cooling. However, the links between the impact and the changes in the biosphere are not fully understood. Here, we investigate how life in the ocean reacts to the perturbations in the decades and centuries after the impact. We find a short-lived algal bloom caused by the upwelling of nutrients from the deep ocean and nutrient input from the impactor.
Continue reading ‘A pronounced spike in ocean productivity triggered by the Chicxulub impact’Teaching ocean climate science to 6th graders during a pandemic
Published 11 June 2021 Presentations , Web sites and blogs ClosedOur STAY COOL for Grandkids Ocean Climate Science Education program began 5 years ago when STAY COOL co-founder David Engel created power point presentations on Ocean Warming and Ocean Acidification. He recruited two Scripps Institution of Oceanography grad students to present the lessons to 6th grade science classes. The lessons comply with the Next Generation Science Standard (NGSS) and are based on the NOAA/National Climate Assessment Educator’s lessons 1 & 2. By March 2020, the now 7 SIO grad students had presented the lessons to more than 3000 students.
In March 2020, the SIO grad students had just completed lessons at two of our schools when the COVID-19 pandemic shut everything down.
Our STAY COOL Education committee wanted to support our teachers in teaching about climate change during the pandemic. Committee member Jenny Miller invited the grad students to a Zoom meeting. They agreed to make video recordings of the two lessons, each taking half of a lesson, since our teachers wanted shorter videos for the students learning online.
Shailja Gangrade and Nathali Cordero made video recordings of Ocean Warming parts 1 and 2. Vanessa Zobell and Erica Ferrer made video recordings of Ocean Acidification parts 1 and 2. David adapted the power point slides and the grad students added some new ones of their own.
I sent the video recordings out to all of our teachers, along with a recipe for the cabbage juice pH indicator for the experiment which Vanessa demonstrates on the first Ocean Acidification video.
Meanwhile, teachers at three schools wanted the SIO grad students to present the lessons on Zoom. Monica Nelson, Shailja Gangrade and Erica Ferrer gave excellent live presentations.
All four videos are now on YouTube and links can be found on the STAY COOL website here. They are of interest to adults too and fun to watch. A link to the cabbage juice recipe is also available here.
Continue reading ‘Teaching ocean climate science to 6th graders during a pandemic’PhD scholarship (fully funded): climate change in the deep oceans
Published 11 June 2021 Jobs ClosedWe seek a PhD student with an excellent academic record and relevant qualifications to undertake research on ‘Climate change in the deep oceans’. The research will incorporate both deep-water coral geochemistry and ocean modelling to understand how the Southern Ocean has influenced past changes in global climate, and its future role in controlling ocean productivity and environmental change in a high CO2 warming world. A suite of geochemical applications (e.g. U-series dating, proxies for temperature, nutrients, and water mass tracing) will be utilised to reconstruct environmental changes occurring over different timescales in intermediate and deep waters within the SE Indian Ocean and Southern Ocean. The research will exploit a unique suite of recently collected subfossil and live deep-water corals from southwest Australian waters (R/V Falkor ROV expedition: http://schmidtocean.org/cruises).
Conditions: UWA will provide a fully funded PhD stipend of $30,000 per year for 3 years (commencing 2021) with the possibility of an additional 6 months extension. A $5000 support package is also provided consisting of a $2000 laptop, and $3000 to present research outcomes at ARC Centre of Excellence and international conferences.
Facilities: UWA has unrivalled analytical capabilities for analysing the chemical and microstructural compositions of biological archives. These encompass an elemental and isotope mass spectrometry facility incorporating aClean Room, Q-ICPMS, HR-ICPMS, x2 MC-ICPMS and laser systems, together with several ion microprobe (SIMS, NanoSIMS), microRaman, and tomography platforms at the Centre for Microscopy, Characterisation and Analysis.
Research team: The successful candidate will join a world-class research team with strong national and international links (https://www.coralcoe.org.au) focused on reconstructing ocean-climate and nutrient dynamics using corals and ocean geochemical modelling (http://oceanchange.com.au). Contact: For more details please contact Professor Malcolm McCulloch (Malcolm.McCulloch@uwa.edu.au). (Commencement before June 2021 preferred).
See website: PhD Opportunities – ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies (coralcoe.org.au)
Continue reading ‘PhD scholarship (fully funded): climate change in the deep oceans’Experimental techniques to assess coral physiology in situ under global and local stressors: current approaches and novel insights
Published 10 June 2021 Science ClosedTags: biological response, calcification, corals, performance, photosynthesis, physiology, respiration, review
Coral reefs are declining worldwide due to global changes in the marine environment. The increasing frequency of massive bleaching events in the tropics is highlighting the need to better understand the stages of coral physiological responses to extreme conditions. Moreover, like many other coastal regions, coral reef ecosystems are facing additional localized anthropogenic stressors such as nutrient loading, increased turbidity, and coastal development. Different strategies have been developed to measure the health status of a damaged reef, ranging from the resolution of individual polyps to the entire coral community, but techniques for measuring coral physiology in situ are not yet widely implemented. For instance, while there are many studies of the coral holobiont response in single or limited-number multiple stressor experiments, they provide only partial insights into metabolic performance under more complex and temporally and spatially variable natural conditions. Here, we discuss the current status of coral reefs and their global and local stressors in the context of experimental techniques that measure core processes in coral metabolism (respiration, photosynthesis, and biocalcification) in situ, and their role in indicating the health status of colonies and communities. We highlight the need to improve the capability of in situ studies in order to better understand the resilience and stress response of corals under multiple global and local scale stressors.
Continue reading ‘Experimental techniques to assess coral physiology in situ under global and local stressors: current approaches and novel insights’Planktic foraminiferal and pteropod contributions to carbon dynamics in the Arctic Ocean (North Svalbard Margin)
Published 10 June 2021 Science ClosedTags: abundance, biogeochemistry, biological response, chemistry, community composition, field, laboratory, mollusks, morphology, otherprocess, phytoplankton, protists, zooplankton
Planktic foraminifera and shelled pteropods are some of the major producers of calcium carbonate (CaCO3) in the ocean. Their calcitic (foraminifera) and aragonitic (pteropods) shells are particularly sensitive to changes in the carbonate chemistry and play an important role for the inorganic and organic carbon pump of the ocean. Here, we have studied the abundance distribution of planktic foraminifera and pteropods (individuals m–3) and their contribution to the inorganic and organic carbon standing stocks (μg m–3) and export production (mg m–2 day–1) along a longitudinal transect north of Svalbard at 81° N, 22–32° E, in the Arctic Ocean. This transect, sampled in September 2018 consists of seven stations covering different oceanographic regimes, from the shelf to the slope and into the deep Nansen Basin. The sea surface temperature ranged between 1 and 5°C in the upper 300 m. Conditions were supersaturated with respect to CaCO3 (Ω > 1 for both calcite and aragonite). The abundance of planktic foraminifera ranged from 2.3 to 52.6 ind m–3 and pteropods from 0.1 to 21.3 ind m–3. The planktic foraminiferal population was composed mainly of the polar species Neogloboquadrina pachyderma (55.9%) and the subpolar species Turborotalita quinqueloba (21.7%), Neogloboquadrina incompta (13.5%) and Globigerina bulloides (5.2%). The pteropod population was dominated by the polar species Limacina helicina (99.6%). The rather high abundance of subpolar foraminiferal species is likely connected to the West Spitsbergen Current bringing warm Atlantic water to the study area. Pteropods dominated at the surface and subsurface. Below 100 m water depth, foraminifera predominated. Pteropods contribute 66–96% to the inorganic carbon standing stocks compared to 4–34% by the planktic foraminifera. The inorganic export production of planktic foraminifera and pteropods together exceeds their organic contribution by a factor of 3. The overall predominance of pteropods over foraminifera in this high Arctic region during the sampling period suggest that inorganic standing stocks and export production of biogenic carbonate would be reduced under the effects of ocean acidification.
Continue reading ‘Planktic foraminiferal and pteropod contributions to carbon dynamics in the Arctic Ocean (North Svalbard Margin)’Impacts of seagrass on benthic microalgae and phytoplankton communities in an experimentally warmed coral reef mesocosm
Published 10 June 2021 Science ClosedTags: algae, biological response, BRcommunity, community composition, corals, laboratory, mesocosms, molecular biology, morphology, North Pacific, otherprocess, phanerogams, physiology, phytoplankton
The effects of seagrass on microalgal assemblages under experimentally elevated temperatures (28°C) and CO2 partial pressures (pCO2; 800 μatm) were examined using coral reef mesocosms. Concentrations of nitrate, ammonium, and benthic microalgal chlorophyll a (chl-a) were significantly higher in seagrass mesocosms, whereas phytoplankton chl-a concentrations were similar between seagrass and seagrass-free control mesocosms. In the seagrass group, fewer parasitic dinoflagellate OTUs (e.g., Syndiniales) were found in the benthic microalgal community though more symbiotic dinoflagellates (e.g., Cladocopium spp.) were quantified in the phytoplankton community. Our results suggest that, under ocean acidification conditions, the presence of seagrass nearby coral reefs may (1) enhance benthic primary productivity, (2) decrease parasitic dinoflagellate abundance, and (3) possibly increase the presence of symbiotic dinoflagellates.
Continue reading ‘Impacts of seagrass on benthic microalgae and phytoplankton communities in an experimentally warmed coral reef mesocosm’A sea of change: Europe’s future in the Atlantic realm
Published 10 June 2021 Newsletters and reports ClosedForeword
However cold it may seem to some of us in a Scandinavian winter, northern Europe enjoys a relatively mild regional climate for our latitude, thanks to the massive amounts of heat brought up from the subtropics by circulation patterns in the North Atlantic Ocean. So it is no surprise that suggestions that this heat transport may weaken or ‘switch off’ attracts much media attention, with headlines that may refer to ‘tipping points’ or ‘collapse’ of the overturning circulation that brings warm surface waters all the way to the Arctic Circle. Studies of the ocean climate on long timescales have found these processes to have stopped or seriously reduced, generally following large freshwater discharges caused by rapid melting of glacial or multi-year ice in the Arctic. Were this to happen, there could be the paradox that global warming can lead to a colder climate for some of us!
With Greenland and Arctic ice melting at a rapid rate owing to the current rates of global warming, and the evidence from past climates, the future of the Atlantic conveyer has become an important topic for research programmes, and scientific papers are step-by-step improving our understanding of the underlying processes and current trends. The overturning circulation that includes the influx of waters from the subtropics to as far as the Arctic is reported to be weakening, but there is not yet a consensus on trends. At the same time, sea levels are rising and seawater acidification continues, placing additional stresses and uncertainties in safeguarding Europe’s seas and coasts and the resources and ecosystem services that they provide. Europe is also looking to the seas to provide new resources, particularly renewable energy but also a range of activities under the general label of the Blue Economy.
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Continue reading ‘A sea of change: Europe’s future in the Atlantic realm’Ocean acidification: the what, where, how, why and what next on this major ocean issue
Published 10 June 2021 Web sites and blogs ClosedIn the last 200 years, the ocean has taken up around 30% of all CO2 emissions and this absorption has altered the production of calcium carbonate in oceanic waters, causing the phenomenon known as Ocean Acidification (OA). Our new web story provides a high-level look at all impacts of this problem, where it is happening, and what needs to happen next.
Photo: IUCN GMPP
Web story – Ocean Acidification: A WORLDWIDE LOOK AT PRESENT AND FUTURE ACTIONS
Mitigation alone is not enough
Mitigation actions by themselves are unable to avoid all consequences associated with OA. There is a need to plan for and implement adaptation measures to alleviate harm. Activities focused on strengthening resilience and enhancing adaptive capacity will provide the greatest opportunities for alleviating the impacts of OA that are not prevented by mitigation. These include the creation of Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) which can directly remediate OA via the preservation of marine vegetation, that, in turn, can buffer against changes in water chemistry. Adaptive capacity in fisheries can be greatly increased by protecting and enhancing fish stock abundance through the reduction of non-acidification related stressors, including overfishing.
The Ocean Acidification International Reference User Group
The web story also goes through the history of OA, including the work of the Ocean Acidification International Reference User Group, an expert group founded in 2005 and funded by the Prince Albert II Foundation. The Group has used the latest findings on ocean acidification to raise awareness of the need to address the issue through targeted policy interventions.
TAMU-CC researcher, students to study coral reefs in Hawaii
Published 10 June 2021 Web sites and blogs ClosedCORPUS CHRISTI – Changes in the chemistry of the ocean are devastating coral reefs around the world, diminishing their role as a safe haven for marine animals and as a protector of coastal areas from storms and erosion. To more fully understand what is happening to these critically important reefs, Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi Assistant Professor of Marine Biology Keisha Bahr is launching an extensive coral research project thanks to a substantial grant from the National Science Foundation.
Bahr is leading a $1 million NSF grant in collaboration with the University of Hawaii, which includes a unique partnership with the Texas State Aquarium. This grant also will provide an immersive, hands-on opportunity for TAMU-CC undergraduates to study coral reefs in Hawaii for the next three years.
“The project will study how changes in the chemistry of our ocean impact calcifying organisms, particularly coral reefs,” Bahr said. This project combines the skills of ocean carbon chemists, coral physiologists, and marine technology developers to build a state-of-the-art system that merges new ocean chemistry sensing technologies with cutting-edge methods for studying coral reef health and underlying calcification processes, Bahr said. Most importantly, students will have the opportunity to interact with experts across these fields and be involved in interdisciplinary research.
Continue reading ‘TAMU-CC researcher, students to study coral reefs in Hawaii’Otago takes lead on policy guidance for ocean acidification
Published 10 June 2021 Web sites and blogs Closed
Dr Christina McGraw from the Department of Chemistry with Professor Cliff Law, who holds a joint position with NIWA and the University of Otago.
A Policymaker’s Handbook for Addressing the Impacts of Ocean Acidification has recently been launched to help Commonwealth countries tackle the global issue of ocean acidification, a key aspect of climate change.
An initiative of the Commonwealth Blue Charter Action Group on Ocean Acidification, the handbook project was led by Dr Christina McGraw from the Department of Chemistry collaboratively with NIWA, including Professor Cliff Law and Dr Kim Currie, and Marine Science PhD student Jesse Vance.
Dr McGraw says New Zealand stepped forward to lead the Commonwealth’s Blue Charter Action Group on Ocean Acidification in recognition of the role the oceans place in our cultural, social and economic wellbeing.
Continue reading ‘Otago takes lead on policy guidance for ocean acidification’Female lobsters are getting smaller, but what about the next generation?
Published 10 June 2021 Media coverage Closed
BAR HARBOR — As Maine’s waters are growing warmer and more acidic, lobster researchers are looking at how that’s affecting both the mothers and offspring of the state’s most prized crustacean.
One thing is known for sure: Mature female lobsters have been shrinking.
Over the past three years, Jesica Waller, a lobster scientist at the state’s Department of Marine Resources, has collected and analyzed more than 1,200 female lobsters along the coast. She has found that since the 1990s, mature females are getting smaller.
“DMR research shows that the carapace/shell length at which most females reach maturity has decreased coastwide over the last 25-30 years,” she wrote in an email. “We sampled and analyzed females along Maine’s coast, and we found that the length at which most females reach maturity has decreased between 5.6 mm and 6.7 mm over this period (mid-1990s to today).”
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Continue reading ‘Female lobsters are getting smaller, but what about the next generation?’Ocean acidification | California Academy of Sciences (text & video)
Published 10 June 2021 Presentations ClosedJoin Academy presenter Aya to learn about ocean acidification: what it is; how it might impact coral reefs; and what we can do to help.
The California Academy of Sciences is a renowned scientific and educational institution dedicated to exploring, explaining, and sustaining life on Earth. Based in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park, it’s the only place in the world to house an aquarium, planetarium, rainforest, and natural history museum—plus cutting-edge research programs—all under one living roof.
Continue reading ‘Ocean acidification | California Academy of Sciences (text & video)’
