Abstract
The impacts of ocean acidification on coral reef macroalgal community composition and metabolism have implications for the habitat supporting capacity of future reefs. In this pilot study, we use co-located semi-hourly measurements of total dissolved inorganic carbon (DIC), total alkalinity, and the stable carbon isotope composition of DIC (δ13CDIC) over a 27 + h period from Tetiaroa Atoll, French Polynesia, to investigate the potential for reef carbonate chemistry to record information related to benthic photosynthetic community composition and response to natural gradients in ambient acidity and dissolved carbon dioxide. The results of this preliminary sampling and modeling exercise suggest that Tetiaroa’s macroalgal communities express plastic carbon-concentrating mechanisms (CCMs) over daily cycles of productivity but may potentially vary this expression as a function of ambient CO2 and acidity within the ecosystem. Additional studies are, therefore, underway to investigate the implications of these observations for reef macroalgal compositional differences under rapidly acidifying oceans.
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Data are available through Mendeley Data at https://doi.org/10.17632/6pfx6cpp39.1
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Acknowledgements
We are thankful for the support of James and Marsha Seeley (Medina, WA) and the laboratory, field facilities, and personnel support provided by the Tetiaroa Society. Additional thanks to L. Brandkamp (UW), D. Anderson (UW), J.A. Gregersen (UW), N.P. Roden (UW), and C.P. Saenger (UW) for aiding in sample collection; B. Kain (Seattle Preparatory School), C. Brichard (UW), and J. Butwin (UW) for aiding with DIC and TA sample analyses; J. Stutsman (UW) and T. Rolfe (UW) for δ13C sample processing and analyses; and P.D. Quay (UW) for helpful discussions on mechanisms responsible for trends in data. Funding support to IWB provided by the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship, Achievement Rewards for College Scientists (ARCS) Fellowships, the Social Science Research Council Graduate Studies Enhancement Grant, and NSF award number 1068839.
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Bolden, I.W., Sachs, J.P. & Gagnon, A.C. Geochemical evidence of temporal ecosystem photosynthetic plasticity within a pristine coral atoll. Coral Reefs 43, 795–800 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00338-024-02493-w
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00338-024-02493-w