Abstract
Under predicted future ocean conditions, reefs exposed to elevated nutrients will simultaneously experience ocean acidification and elevated temperature. We evaluated if moderate nutrients mitigate, minimize, or exacerbate negative effects of predicted future ocean conditions on coral physiology. For 30 days, Acropora millepora and Turbinaria reniformis were exposed to a fully factorial experiment of eight treatments including two seawater temperatures (26.4 °C and 29.8 °C), pCO2 levels (401 μatm pCO2 and 760 μatm pCO2), and nutrient concentrations (ambient: 0.40 μmol L−1 NO3− and 0.22 μmol L−1 PO43−, and moderate: 3.56 μmol L−1 NO3− and 0.31 μmol L−1 PO43−). Added nitrate was taken up by the algal endosymbionts and transferred to the coral hosts in both species, though to a much higher degree in A. millepora. When exposed to elevated temperature, elevated pCO2, or both, effects observed for chlorophyll a, calcification, biomass, and energy reserves were not compounded by the moderate nutrient concentrations in either species. Moderate nutrients enabled A. millepora to continue to meet daily metabolic demand via photosynthesis under predicted future ocean conditions and T. reniformis to greatly exceed daily metabolic demand via photosynthesis and heterotrophy. Our results suggest that balanced moderate nutrients are not detrimental to corals under predicted future ocean conditions and may even provide some benefits.
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Acknowledgements
We thank the staff of Reef Systems Coral Farm Inc., New Albany, Ohio for their time and logistical support. We also thank S. Blackhurst, M. Geronimus, X. Hu, T. Liston, M. McBride, T. Pettay, J. Price, M. Ringwald, K. Rockwell, C. Saup, J. Scheuerman, M. Shortridge, A. Singer, E. Zebrowski, and C. Zerda for help in the laboratory.
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This work was funded primarily by the National Science Foundation (NSF-EF-1041124, 1040940, 1041070 to AGG, MEW, and WJC, respectively). Additional support was provided to AGG by the National Science Foundation (NSF-OCE 1838667) and the HW Hoover Foundation, and to KLD by the Graduate School’s Alumni Grants for Graduate Research and Scholarship (AGGRS) Program at The Ohio State University.
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AGG and MEW secured the funding, and designed and coordinated the study. All authors, except for KLD participated in the fieldwork. KLD and VS carried out all laboratory analyses except for T. reniformis chlorophyll a which was conducted by KH. KLD carried out all data analyses and drafted the manuscript. All authors contributed to revising the manuscript and gave final approval for publication.
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Dobson, K.L., Levas, S., Schoepf, V. et al. Moderate nutrient concentrations are not detrimental to corals under future ocean conditions. Mar Biol 168, 98 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00227-021-03901-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00227-021-03901-3