The direct and indirect effects of ocean acidification (OA) are a growing concern, particularly in areas already experiencing elevated levels of oceanic CO₂. Studies with marine fishes suggest that elevated CO₂ levels may affect behavior by interfering with an important brain neurotransmitter. Studies examining the effects of OA fish behavior...
Oceanic uptake of rising anthropogenic CO₂ emissions has caused the emergence of ocean acidification as a major threat to marine ecosystems worldwide. Along eastern boundary current systems, seawater is naturally acidified due to coastal upwelling of low pH seawater from depth. Compounded by ocean acidification, upwelling regions are expected to...
Since plants utilize CO₂ as the substrate for photosynthesis, terrestrial plants
may be directly affected by increasing levels of CO₂ in the atmosphere. Plants native to
the sagebrush steppe are predicted to increase in growth in response to elevated CO₂
through increased water use efficiency and higher photosynthetic rates. This...
Biological di-nitrogen (N₂) fixation is a key process in open-ocean ecosystems, where the new nitrogen (N) provided by marine diazotrophs can support a large fraction of primary productivity and carbon (C) drawdown. Recent laboratory studies have shown that elevated pCO₂ enhances the rate of N₂ fixation by select laboratory isolates...
Larvae of the Pacific Oyster, Crassostrea gigas, at Whiskey Creek Shellfish Hatchery (WCH) in Netarts Bay, Oregon, are negatively impacted by high-CO₂ water and exposure during the initial shell formation period appears to be particularly damaging. To investigate the mechanism of this early susceptibility, several cohorts of larvae at WCH...
In a steady state, the Earth's absorbed solar radiation (ASR) balances the outgoing
longwave radiation (OLR) at the top of the atmosphere (TOA). In response to a radiative
forcing, that is, an external perturbation to the top of the atmosphere energy balance, the
Earth's climate system adjusts until reaching a...
The multifaceted role of the environment in regulating the structure and dynamics of biological communities has long fascinated ecologists and motivated much debate and research. Now, in a time of accelerated global changes due to human impacts, the need to understand how the environment shapes communities has gained new urgency....
As the effect of ocean acidification (OA) on marine calcifiers is better understood, a range of potential mitigative strategies have been proposed, many of which are plagued by concerns of scale and feasibility. One oft-cited option is to increase the biomass of photosynthetic organisms to remove CO₂ from the water...