Full annual monitoring of Subantarctic Emiliania huxleyi populations reveals highly calcified morphotypes in high-CO₂ winter conditions.

ABSTRACT: Ocean acidification is expected to have detrimental consequences for the most abundant calcifying phytoplankton species Emiliania huxleyi. However, this assumption is mainly based on laboratory manipulations that are unable to reproduce the complexity of natural ecosystems. Here, E. huxleyi coccolith assemblages collected over a year by an autonomous water sampler and sediment traps in the Subantarctic Zone were analysed. The combination of taxonomic and morphometric analyses together with in situ measurements of surface-water properties allowed us to monitor, with unprecedented detail, the seasonal cycle of E. huxleyi at two Subantarctic stations. E. huxleyi subantarctic assemblages were composed of a mixture of, at least, four different morphotypes. Heavier morphotypes exhibited their ma

SUBMITTER: Rigual-Hernandez AS 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7018777 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature