Ocean acidification alters the material properties of Mytilus edulis shells

DOI

Ocean acidification (OA) and the resultant changing carbonate saturation states is threatening the formation of calcium carbonate shells and exoskeletons of marine organisms. The production of biominerals in such organisms relies on the availability of carbonate and the ability of the organism to biomineralize in changing environments. To understand how biomineralizers will respond to OA the common blue mussel, Mytilus edulis, was cultured at projected levels of pCO2 (380, 550, 750, 1000 µatm) and increased temperatures (ambient, ambient plus 2°C). Nanoindentation (a single mussel shell) and microhardness testing were used to assess the material properties of the shells. Young's modulus (E), hardness (H) and toughness (KIC) were measured in mussel shells grown in multiple stressor conditions. OA caused mussels to produce shell calcite that is stiffer (higher modulus of elasticity) and harder than shells grown in control conditions. The outer shell (calcite) is more brittle in OA conditions while the inner shell (aragonite) is softer and less stiff in shells grown under OA conditions. Combining increasing ocean pCO2 and temperatures as projected for future global ocean appears to reduce the impact of increasing pCO2 on the material properties of the mussel shell. OA may cause changes in shell material properties that could prove problematic under predation scenarios for the mussels; however, this may be partially mitigated by increasing temperature.

In order to allow full comparability with other ocean acidification data sets, the R package seacarb (Gattuso et al, 2015) was used to compute a complete and consistent set of carbonate system variables, as described by Nisumaa et al. (2010). In this dataset the original values were archived in addition with the recalculated parameters (see related PI). The date of carbonate chemistry calculation is 2015-07-03.

Supplement to: Fitzer, Susan C; Zhu, Wenzhong; Tanner, K Elizabeth; Phoenix, Vernon R; Kamenos, N A; Cusack, Maggie (2014): Ocean acidification alters the material properties of Mytilus edulis shells. Journal of The Royal Society Interface, 12(103), 20141227-20141227

Identifier
DOI https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.847833
Related Identifier https://doi.org/10.1098/rsif.2014.1227
Related Identifier https://cran.r-project.org/package=seacarb
Metadata Access https://ws.pangaea.de/oai/provider?verb=GetRecord&metadataPrefix=datacite4&identifier=oai:pangaea.de:doi:10.1594/PANGAEA.847833
Provenance
Creator Fitzer, Susan C ORCID logo; Zhu, Wenzhong ORCID logo; Tanner, K Elizabeth ORCID logo; Phoenix, Vernon R ORCID logo; Kamenos, N A ORCID logo; Cusack, Maggie ORCID logo
Publisher PANGAEA
Contributor Yang, Yan
Publication Year 2015
Rights Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported; https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/
OpenAccess true
Representation
Resource Type Supplementary Dataset; Dataset
Format text/tab-separated-values
Size 22000 data points
Discipline Earth System Research