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      Low recruitment due to altered settlement substrata as primary constraint for coral communities under ocean acidification

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      Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences
      The Royal Society

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          Abstract

          <p class="first" id="d6971687e199">The future of coral reefs under increasing CO <sub>2</sub> depends on their capacity to recover from disturbances. To predict the recovery potential of coral communities that are fully acclimatized to elevated CO <sub>2</sub>, we compared the relative success of coral recruitment and later life stages at two volcanic CO <sub>2</sub> seeps and adjacent control sites in Papua New Guinea. Our field experiments showed that the effects of ocean acidification (OA) on coral recruitment rates were up to an order of magnitude greater than the effects on the survival and growth of established corals. Settlement rates, recruit and juvenile densities were best predicted by the presence of crustose coralline algae, as opposed to the direct effects of seawater CO <sub>2</sub>. Offspring from high CO <sub>2</sub> acclimatized parents had similarly impaired settlement rates as offspring from control parents. For most coral taxa, field data showed no evidence of cumulative and compounding detrimental effects of high CO <sub>2</sub> on successive life stages, and three taxa showed improved adult performance at high CO <sub>2</sub> that compensated for their low recruitment rates. Our data suggest that severely declining capacity for reefs to recover, due to altered settlement substrata and reduced coral recruitment, is likely to become a dominant mechanism of how OA will alter coral reefs. </p>

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          Impacts of ocean acidification on marine organisms: quantifying sensitivities and interaction with warming

          Ocean acidification represents a threat to marine species worldwide, and forecasting the ecological impacts of acidification is a high priority for science, management, and policy. As research on the topic expands at an exponential rate, a comprehensive understanding of the variability in organisms' responses and corresponding levels of certainty is necessary to forecast the ecological effects. Here, we perform the most comprehensive meta-analysis to date by synthesizing the results of 228 studies examining biological responses to ocean acidification. The results reveal decreased survival, calcification, growth, development and abundance in response to acidification when the broad range of marine organisms is pooled together. However, the magnitude of these responses varies among taxonomic groups, suggesting there is some predictable trait-based variation in sensitivity, despite the investigation of approximately 100 new species in recent research. The results also reveal an enhanced sensitivity of mollusk larvae, but suggest that an enhanced sensitivity of early life history stages is not universal across all taxonomic groups. In addition, the variability in species' responses is enhanced when they are exposed to acidification in multi-species assemblages, suggesting that it is important to consider indirect effects and exercise caution when forecasting abundance patterns from single-species laboratory experiments. Furthermore, the results suggest that other factors, such as nutritional status or source population, could cause substantial variation in organisms' responses. Last, the results highlight a trend towards enhanced sensitivity to acidification when taxa are concurrently exposed to elevated seawater temperature.
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            Coral resilience to ocean acidification and global warming through pH up-regulation

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              RECOGNITION AND SELECTION OF SETTLEMENT SUBSTRATA DETERMINE POST-SETTLEMENT SURVIVAL IN CORALS

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                Author and article information

                Journal
                Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences
                Proc. R. Soc. B
                The Royal Society
                0962-8452
                1471-2954
                September 13 2017
                September 13 2017
                September 13 2017
                September 13 2017
                : 284
                : 1862
                : 20171536
                Article
                10.1098/rspb.2017.1536
                5597843
                28904144
                44283480-a313-44c6-82d5-e8072fc22396
                © 2017

                http://royalsocietypublishing.org/licence

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