Coccolithophore calcification response to past ocean acidification and climate change

Sarah A. O’Dea, Samantha J. Gibbs (), Paul R. Bown, Jeremy R. Young, Alex J. Poulton, Cherry Newsam and Paul A. Wilson
Additional contact information
Sarah A. O’Dea: National Oceanography Centre, Southampton, University of Southampton, Waterfront Campus
Samantha J. Gibbs: National Oceanography Centre, Southampton, University of Southampton, Waterfront Campus
Paul R. Bown: University College London
Jeremy R. Young: University College London
Alex J. Poulton: Ocean Biogeochemistry and Ecosystems, National Oceanography Centre, Southampton
Cherry Newsam: National Oceanography Centre, Southampton, University of Southampton, Waterfront Campus
Paul A. Wilson: National Oceanography Centre, Southampton, University of Southampton, Waterfront Campus

Nature Communications, 2014, vol. 5, issue 1, 1-7

Abstract: Abstract Anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions are forcing rapid ocean chemistry changes and causing ocean acidification (OA), which is of particular significance for calcifying organisms, including planktonic coccolithophores. Detailed analysis of coccolithophore skeletons enables comparison of calcite production in modern and fossil cells in order to investigate biomineralization response of ancient coccolithophores to climate change. Here we show that the two dominant coccolithophore taxa across the Paleocene–Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM) OA global warming event (~56 million years ago) exhibited morphological response to environmental change and both showed reduced calcification rates. However, only Coccolithus pelagicus exhibits a transient thinning of coccoliths, immediately before the PETM, that may have been OA-induced. Changing coccolith thickness may affect calcite production more significantly in the dominant modern species Emiliania huxleyi, but, overall, these PETM records indicate that the environmental factors that govern taxonomic composition and growth rate will most strongly influence coccolithophore calcification response to anthropogenic change.

Date: 2014
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms6363 Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:5:y:2014:i:1:d:10.1038_ncomms6363

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/ncomms6363

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().