Sentences with phrase «coccolithophore calcification»

Therefore, although our results suggest that coccolithophore calcification will increase in future ocean conditions (table 6), it is unclear whether, or how, such changes might affect carbon export to the deep sea [7,8].

There is, therefore, much current interest in how coccolithophore calcification might be affected by climate change and ocean acidification, both of which occur as atmospheric carbon dioxide increases.

Dr Sarah O'Dea, from Ocean and Earth Science at the University of Southampton and lead author of the study, says: «Our results show that climate change significantly altered coccolithophore calcification rates at the PETM and has the potential to be just as significant, perhaps even more so, today.

While these results indicate that coccolithophore calcification might increase under future ocean conditions, the researchers say that it's still unclear «whether, or how, such changes might affect carbon export to the deep sea.»

Not exact matches

The researchers received another surprise when they used recently developed genomic approaches to compare the expression of genes related to calcification in coccolithophores grown under current and future seawater conditions.

«At least in this experiment with one coccolithophore strain, when we combined higher levels of CO2 with higher temperatures, they actually did better in terms of calcification.»

Our novel technique involved analysing coccolithophore skeletal remains and applying observations from modern specimens to estimate, for the first time, calcification rates of fossil coccolithophores.»

Dr Samantha Gibbs, from Ocean and Earth Science at the University of Southampton, who was Dr O'Dea's PhD supervisor and co-author of the study, says: «A key objective was to record calcification in fossil coccolithophores in a way that enabled direct comparison with measurements from living specimens.

The study's lead author, Dr. Fanny Monteiro, lecturer and NERC research fellow from the school of Geographical Sciences at the University of Bristol, added: «Calcification in coccolithophores has high energy demand but brings multiple benefits enabling the currently observed diversity of their ecology and form.»

Most laboratory studies suggest that higher carbon dioxide concentration leads to decreased calcification in coccolithophores, the tiny phytoplankton that contribute to the base of Southern Ocean food webs.

For example across the tropical ocean, the ratio of net calcification to net photosynthesis for coccolithophores remained constant despite regions of widely varying surface pH and calcite saturation levels (Maranon 2016).

Doubling the partial pressure of CO2 above seawater leads to a decrease in calcification of 9 — 29 % and 4 — 8 % for coccolithophores and foraminifera, respectively, and of 9 — 59 % for reef - building corals.

In this study, averaged across all generation points, each coccolithophore cell increased its calcification rate (26 %) and calcium carbonate quota (26 %) in the future ocean treatment (figures 2a and 3a), and the total concentration of calcium carbonate in the culture (PIC l − 1) increased 18 % in the future ocean condition (table 4).

OA affects photosynthesis and calcification of marine organisms such as coccolithophores [3 — 5], unicellular microalgae that surround themselves with scales of calcium carbonate (coccoliths).

Specifically, our premise is that the contrasting calcification tolerance of various extant species of coccolithophore to raised pCO2 reflects an «evolutionary memory» of past atmospheric composition.