Abstract |
- The California Current Large Marine Ecosystem
(CCLME), a temperate marine region dominated by episodic
upwelling, is predicted to experience rapid environmental
change in the future due to ocean acidification. The aragonite
saturation state within the California Current System is
predicted to decrease in the future with near-permanent undersaturation
conditions expected by the year 2050. Thus,
the CCLME is a critical region to study due to the rapid
rate of environmental change that resident organisms will
experience and because of the economic and societal value
of this coastal region. Recent efforts by a research consortium
– the Ocean Margin Ecosystems Group for Acidification
Studies (OMEGAS) – has begun to characterize a portion
of the CCLME; both describing the spatial mosaic of
pH in coastal waters and examining the responses of key
calcification-dependent benthic marine organisms to natural
variation in pH and to changes in carbonate chemistry
that are expected in the coming decades. In this review, we
present the OMEGAS strategy of co-locating sensors and
oceanographic observations with biological studies on benthic marine invertebrates, specifically measurements of functional
traits such as calcification-related processes and genetic
variation in populations that are locally adapted to conditions
in a particular region of the coast. Highlighted in
this contribution are (1) the OMEGAS sensor network that
spans the west coast of the US from central Oregon to southern
California, (2) initial findings of the carbonate chemistry
amongst the OMEGAS study sites, and (3) an overview
of the biological data that describes the acclimatization and
the adaptation capacity of key benthic marine invertebrates
within the CCLME.
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Citation |
- Hofmann, G. E., Evans, T. G., Kelly, M. W., Padilla-Gamiño, J. L., Blanchette, C. A., Washburn, L., Chan, F., McManus, M. A., Menge, B. A., Gaylord, B., Hill, T. M., Sanford, E., LaVigne, M., Rose, J. M., Kapsenberg, L., and Dutton, J. M.: Exploring local adaptation and the ocean acidification seascape – studies in the California Current Large Marine Ecosystem, Biogeosciences, 11, 1053-1064, doi:10.5194/bg-11-1053-2014, 2014.
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Funding Statement (additional comments about funding) |
- This research was funded by US National Science Foundation grant (NSF OCE-1040960) to the Ocean Margins Ecosystem Group for Acidification Studies (OMEGAS), a consortium of scientists from different institutions along the US west coast (see http://omegas.science.Oregon State.edu/), by funds from NSF grant IOS-1021536 to G. E. Hofmann and by funds from the University of California in support of a multi-campus research program, Ocean Acidification: A Training and Research Consortium (http://Ocean Acidification.msi.ucsb.edu/), to G. E. Hofmann, E. Sanford, B. Gaylord, and T. M Hill. Research presented here was also supported in part by grants from the David and Lucile Packard Foundation to the Partnership for Interdisciplinary Studies of Coastal Oceans (PISCO) consortium (http://piscoweb.org).
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