Seawater carbonate chemistry and kelp densities and coral coverages at three study locations and photosynthesis and calcification of corals measured in the laboratory

DOI

Ocean warming is altering the biogeographical distribution of marine organisms. In the tropics, rising sea surface temperatures are restructuring coral reef communities with sensitive species being lost. At the biogeographical divide between temperate and tropical communities, warming is causing macroalgal forest loss and the spread of tropical corals, fishes and other species, termed “tropicalization”. A lack of field research into the combined effects of warming and ocean acidification means there is a gap in our ability to understand and plan for changes in coastal ecosystems. Here, we focus on the tropicalization trajectory of temperate marine ecosystems becoming coral-dominated systems. We conducted field surveys and in situ transplants at natural analogues for present and future conditions under (i) ocean warming and (ii) both ocean warming and acidification at a transition zone between kelp and coral-dominated ecosystems. We show that increased herbivory by warm-water fishes exacerbates kelp forest loss and that ocean acidification negates any benefits of warming for range extending tropical corals growth and physiology at temperate latitudes. Our data show that, as the combined effects of ocean acidification and warming ratchet up, marine coastal ecosystems lose kelp forests but do not gain scleractinian corals. Ocean acidification plus warming leads to overall habitat loss and a shift to simple turf-dominated ecosystems, rather than the complex coral-dominated tropicalized systems often seen with warming alone. Simplification of marine habitats by increased CO2 levels cascades through the ecosystem and could have severe consequences for the provision of goods and services.

In order to allow full comparability with other ocean acidification data sets, the R package seacarb (Gattuso et al, 2021) 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 by seacarb is 2022-05-11.

Identifier
DOI https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.944056
Related Identifier https://doi.org/10.1111/gcb.15749
Related Identifier https://gitlab.com/agoremix/tropicalisation-under-ocean-warming-and-acidification
Related Identifier https://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/seacarb/index.html
Metadata Access https://ws.pangaea.de/oai/provider?verb=GetRecord&metadataPrefix=datacite4&identifier=oai:pangaea.de:doi:10.1594/PANGAEA.944056
Provenance
Creator Agostini, Sylvain ORCID logo; Harvey, Ben P ORCID logo; Milazzo, Marco; Wada, Shigeki ORCID logo; Kon, Koetsu ORCID logo; Floc'h, Nicolas; Komatsu, K ORCID logo; Kuroyama, Mayumi ORCID logo; Hall-Spencer, Jason M ORCID logo
Publisher PANGAEA
Contributor Yang, Yan
Publication Year 2021
Rights Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International; https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
OpenAccess true
Representation
Resource Type Dataset
Format text/tab-separated-values
Size 33452 data points
Discipline Earth System Research
Spatial Coverage (138.942W, 34.317S, 139.210E, 34.666N)