Massive Natural pH Fluctuations Do Not Inhibit Marine Life in a Coastal Environment

According to four American researchers–(Baumann et al. (2015))–projections of ocean acidification, in which the average pH of the open ocean is predicted to decline by 0.3 pH unit over the next century, have “heightened the need to better understand the sensitivity of marine organisms to low pH conditions.” As a result, numerous ocean acidification experiments have been conducted on various marine organisms, producing a wide range of results. This “complexity of organism responses to elevated CO2,” continue Baumann et al., “appears to stem, in part, from insufficient knowledge and thus appreciation of the scales of natural pH variability experienced by marine organisms in their habitats.” Coastal environments, for example, generally experience greater fluctuations in pH than the open ocean. And since the majority of ecologically and economically important marine species spend a vast portion of their life cycles in coastal environments, the authors say there is a great need to “characterize [such] marine habitats in terms of their short- and long-term pH variability.” In an effort to fill this knowledge gap, this team of researchers embarked on a journey to “characterize the patterns and magnitudes of diel [daily], seasonal, and interannual fluctuations in pH and dissolved oxygen (DO) in an undisturbed tidal salt marsh adjacent to Long Island Sound, using a multiyear, high-frequency data set.” Flax Pond (40.96°N, 73.14°W), a one square kilometer tidal...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - Category: American Health Authors: Source Type: blogs