Calcification response of a key phytoplankton family to millennial-scale environmental change.

ABSTRACT: Coccolithophores are single-celled photosynthesizing marine algae, responsible for half of the calcification in the surface ocean, and exert a strong influence on the distribution of carbon among global reservoirs, and thus Earth's climate. Calcification in the surface ocean decreases the buffering capacity of seawater for CO₂, whilst photosynthetic carbon fixation has the opposite effect. Experiments in culture have suggested that coccolithophore calcification decreases under high CO₂ concentrations ([CO₂(aq)]) constituting a negative feedback. However, the extent to which these results are representative of natural populations, and of the response over more than a few hundred generations is unclear. Here we describe and apply a novel rationale for size-no

SUBMITTER: McClelland HL 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5039703 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature