How Ocean Acidification Affects Marine Life
Published on by Water Network Research, Official research team of The Water Network in Academic
New Study of Marine Organisms that Make up the 'Biofouling Community' - Tiny Creatures that Attach Themselves to Ships' Hulls and Rocks in the Ocean Around the World - Shows How they Adapt to Changing Ocean Acidification
There is overwhelming evidence to suggest the world's oceans are becoming, and will continue to become more acidic in the future, but there are many questions about how it will affect marine life. The 'biofouling community' - consisting of tiny species likesea squirts, hard shell worms and sponges - affects many industries including underwater construction, desalination plants and ship hulls. Removing these organisms (a process called antifouling) is estimated to cost around $22 billion a year globally.
For the first experiment of its kind, over 10,000 animals from the highly productive Ria Formosa Lagoon system in Algarve, Portugal were allowed to colonise hard surfaces in six aquarium tanks. In half the tanks, the seawater had the normal acidity for the lagoon (PH 7.9) and the other half were set at an increased acidity of PH 7.7. The conditions represented the IPCC's prediction for ocean acidification over the next 50 years.
After 100 days, animals with hard shells (Spirobid worms - Neodexiospira pseudocorugata ) reduced to only one fifth of their original numbers, while sponges and some sea squirts (Ascidian Molgula sp) increased in number by double or even fourfold.
Lead author Professor Lloyd Peck from British Antarctic Survey (BAS) says:
"Our experiment shows the response of one 'biofouling community' to a very rapid change in acidity, but nonetheless shows the degree to which these communities could be impacted byocean acidification, and to which its associated industries may need to respond. What's interesting is that the increased acidity at the levels we studied destroys not the building blocks in the outer shell of the worms itself, but the binding that holds it together. Many individuals perish, but we also showed their larvae and juveniles are also unable to establish and create their hard exoskeleton."
Source: Phys.org
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