{"id":70360,"date":"2016-02-26T04:59:05","date_gmt":"2016-02-26T04:59:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/i\/study-ocean-acidification-already-slowing-coral-reef-growth\/"},"modified":"2016-02-26T04:59:05","modified_gmt":"2016-02-26T04:59:05","slug":"study-ocean-acidification-already-slowing-coral-reef-growth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/i\/study-ocean-acidification-already-slowing-coral-reef-growth\/","title":{"rendered":"Study: Ocean acidification already slowing coral reef growth"},"content":{"rendered":"

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IMAGE:\u00c2\u00a0<\/strong>This is Kai Zhu.
\n view more <\/i><\/p>\n

Credit: Jeff Fitlow\/Rice University<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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HOUSTON \u00e2\u20ac\u201d (Feb. 25, 2016) \u00e2\u20ac\u201d An international team of scientists from the Carnegie Institution for Science, Rice University and other institutions has performed the first experiment to manipulate seawater chemistry in a natural coral-reef community to determine the effect that excess carbon dioxide released by human activity is having on coral reefs.<\/p>\n

The research, which is published in this week\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s issue of Nature<\/i>, was conducted in a lagoon on the southern Great Barrier Reef in Australia in 2014. By controlling the alkalinity on a portion of the reef, the team was able to examine how fast the reef is growing today and compare that with growth rates in less acidic conditions that existed prior to the Industrial Revolution. <\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Our work provides the first strong evidence from experiments on a natural ecosystem that ocean acidification is already causing reefs to grow more slowly than they did 100 years ago,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d said study lead author Rebecca Albright, a marine biologist in Carnegie\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Department of Global Ecology in Stanford, Calif. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Ocean acidification is already taking its toll on coral reef communities. This is no longer a fear for the future; it is the reality of today.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d <\/p>\n

The research team included Rice\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Kai Zhu, an expert in ecological statistics who joined Rice as a Huxley Faculty Fellow in the Department of BioSciences in January following a postdoctoral appointment at Carnegie\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Department of Global Ecology.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153The data analysis for the experiment was complicated by the natural variation of conditions in the reef,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Zhu said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Statistically speaking, there was a great deal of noise in the data, and as scientists we needed to filter out the noise so that we could examine only the signal, the change in the growth rate that resulted from the change in alkalinity.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

Zhu designed a statistical model that was capable of quantifying the variation that occurred both naturally \u00e2\u20ac\u201d in a portion of the reef that was measured as an experimental control \u00e2\u20ac\u201d and as a result of the experiment. The data showed that the reef grew about 7 percent faster when seawater acidity approximated that of preindustrial conditions.<\/p>\n

The carbon dioxide that is released into the atmosphere from fossil-fuel consumption acts as a greenhouse gas and negatively impacts the world\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s oceans, said Carnegie\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Ken Caldeira, the study\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s lead scientist. Ocean impacts of carbon dioxide are partially due to overall warming caused by climate change. But in addition, most atmospheric carbon dioxide is eventually absorbed by oceans and reacts with seawater to form an acid that is corrosive to coral reefs, shellfish and other marine life. This process is known as \u00e2\u20ac\u0153ocean acidification.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

Caldeira said coral reefs are particularly vulnerable to ocean acidification, because reef architecture is built by the accretion, or buildup, of calcium carbonate through a process called calcification. Calcification becomes increasingly difficult as acid concentrations increase and the surrounding water\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s pH decreases. Scientists have predicted that reefs could begin dissolving within the century if acidification continues and reefs switch from carbonate accretion to carbonate dissolution. <\/p>\n

Previous studies have demonstrated large-scale declines in coral reefs over recent decades. Work from another team led by Caldeira found that rates of reef calcification were 40 percent lower in 2008 and 2009 than they were during the same season in 1975 and 1976. But it has been difficult to pinpoint exactly how much of the decline is due to acidification and how much is caused by warming, pollution and overfishing. <\/p>\n

In the current study, the team manipulated the alkalinity of seawater flowing over a reef flat off Australia\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s One Tree Island. They brought the reef\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s pH closer to what it would have been in the preindustrial period based on estimates of atmospheric carbon dioxide from the era. They then measured the reef\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s calcification in response to this pH increase. They found that calcification rates under these manipulated preindustrial conditions were about 7 percent higher than they are today. <\/p>\n

Caldeira said some researchers have proposed increasing the alkalinity of ocean water around coral reefs through geoengineering to save shallow marine ecosystems. The results of the new study show that this idea could be effective, but he said it would likely be impractical to implement on all but the smallest scales. <\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153The only real, lasting way to protect coral reefs is to make deep cuts in our carbon dioxide emissions,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Caldeira said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153If we don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t take action on this issue very rapidly, coral reefs \u00e2\u20ac\u201d and everything that depends on them, including both wildlife and local communities \u00e2\u20ac\u201d will not survive into the next century.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

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Additional study co-authors include Carnegie\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Lilian Caldeira, Lester Kwiatkowski, Jana Maclaren (also of Stanford University), Yana Nebuchina, Julia Pongratz (now at Max Planck Institute for Meteorology), Katharine Ricke, Kenny Schneider (now at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem) and Marine Sesboue; as well as Jessica Hosfelt and Aaron Ninokawa of the University of California, Davis; Benjamin Mason of Stanford University; Tanya Rivlin of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem; Kathryn Shamberger of both Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and Texas AM University; and Kennedy Wolfe of the University of Sydney.<\/p>\n

The research was supported by the Carnegie Institution for Science and the Fund for Innovative Climate and Energy Research.\n<\/p>\n

A high-resolution IMAGE is available for download at:
\n http:\/\/news.rice.edu\/files\/2016\/02\/0229_REEF-zhu88-lg-1o6c39t.jpg<\/p>\n

CAPTION: Kai Zhu<\/p>\n

(Photo by Jeff Fitlow\/Rice University)<\/p>\n

Additional photos are available at:
\nhttp:\/\/dge.stanford.edu\/labs\/caldeiralab\/OneTreePress\/OneTreePressPhotos.html<\/p>\n

A video about the research is available at:
\nhttps:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=fEqCqZId39M<\/p>\n

The DOI of the Nature<\/i> paper is:
\n10.1038\/nature17155<\/p>\n

A copy of the paper is available at:
\nhttp:\/\/www.nature.com\/nature\/journal\/vaop\/ncurrent\/full\/nature17155.html<\/p>\n

This release can be found online at news.rice.edu.<\/p>\n

Located on a 300-acre forested campus in Houston, Rice University is consistently ranked among the nation\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s top 20 universities by U.S. News World Report. Rice has highly respected schools of Architecture, Business, Continuing Studies, Engineering, Humanities, Music, Natural Sciences and Social Sciences and is home to the Baker Institute for Public Policy. With 3,910 undergraduates and 2,809 graduate students, Rice\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s undergraduate student-to-faculty ratio is 6-to-1. Its residential college system builds close-knit communities and lifelong friendships, just one reason why Rice is ranked No. 1 for best quality of life and for lots of race\/class interaction by the Princeton Review. Rice is also rated as a best value among private universities by Kiplinger\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Personal Finance. To read \u00e2\u20ac\u0153What they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re saying about Rice,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d go to http:\/\/tinyurl.com\/AboutRiceUniversity.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

IMAGE:\u00c2\u00a0This is Kai Zhu. view more Credit: Jeff Fitlow\/Rice University HOUSTON \u00e2\u20ac\u201d (Feb. 25, 2016) \u00e2\u20ac\u201d An international team of scientists from the Carnegie Institution for Science, Rice University and other institutions has performed the first experiment to manipulate seawater chemistry in a natural coral-reef community to determine the effect that excess carbon dioxide released Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-70360","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/i\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70360","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/i\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/i\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/i\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/i\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=70360"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/i\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70360\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/i\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=70360"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/i\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=70360"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/i\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=70360"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}