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An ocean acidification-simulated system and its application in coral physiological studies

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Abstract

Due to the elevated atmospheric carbon dioxide, ocean acidification (OA) has recently emerged as a research theme in marine biology due to an expected deleterious effect of altered seawater chemistry on calcification. A system simulating future OA scenario is crucial for OA-related studies. Here, we designed an OA-simulated system (OASys) with three solenoid-controlled CO2 gas channels. The OASys can adjust the pH of the seawater by bubbling CO2 gas into seawaters via feedback systems. The OASys is very simple in structure with an integrated design and is new-user friendly with the instruction. Moreover, the OASys can monitor and record real-time pH values and can maintain pH levels within 0.02 pH unit. In a 15-d experiment, the OASys was applied to simulate OA in which the expected target pH values were 8.00, 7.80 and 7.60 to study the calcifying response of Galaxea fascicularis. The results showed daily mean seawater pH values held at pH 8.00±0.01, 7.80±0.01 and 7.61±0.01 over 15 d. Correspondingly, the coral calcification of G. fascicularis gradually decreased with reduced pH.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Third Institute of Oceanography, Ministry of Natural Resources, Xiamen, 361005, China

    Xinqing Zheng, Chenying Wang & Youyin Ye

  2. Research Center for Oceanography, Indonesian Institute of Sciences, Jakarta, 14430, Indonesia

    Tri Aryono Hadi

  3. Institute for Advanced Study, Shenzhen University, Shenzhen, 518060, China

    Ke Pan

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  1. Xinqing Zheng
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  2. Chenying Wang
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  3. Tri Aryono Hadi
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  4. Youyin Ye
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  5. Ke Pan
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Correspondence to Xinqing Zheng or Ke Pan.

Additional information

Foundation item: The China-ASEAN Maritime Cooperation Fund Project “China-ASEAN Countries Collaboration on Marine Endangered Species Researches” and “China-ASEAN Marine Protected Areas Ecosystem Management Network”, Regional Demonstration of Marine Economy Innovative Development Project under contract No. 16PZY002SF18; the China-Indonesia Maritime Cooperation Fund Project “China-Indonesia Bitung Ecological Station Establishment”; the National Natural Science Foundation of China under contract No. 41506123.

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Zheng, X., Wang, C., Hadi, T.A. et al. An ocean acidification-simulated system and its application in coral physiological studies. Acta Oceanol. Sin. 37, 55–62 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13131-018-1223-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13131-018-1223-3

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