Seawater carbonate chemistry and coral calcification

Coral reefs are constructed by calcifiers that precipitate calcium carbonate to build their shells or skeletons through the process of calcification. Accurately assessing coral calcification rates is crucial to determine the health of these ecosystems and their response to major environmental changes such as ocean warming and acidification. Several approaches have been used to assess rates of coral calcification but there is a real need to compare these approaches in order to ascertain that high quality and intercomparable results can be produced. Here, we assessed four methods (total alkalinity anomaly, calcium anomaly, 45Ca incorporation and 13C incorporation) to determine coral calcification of the reef-building coral Stylophora pistillata. Given the importance of environmental conditions on this process, the study was performed under two pH (ambient and low level) and two light (light and dark) conditions. […]

珊瑚礁的构建是由碳酸钙沉淀的钙化生物通过钙化作用形成其外壳或骨骼的过程。精确评估珊瑚钙化速率对于判定这些生态系统的健康状况及其对海洋变暖和酸化等重大环境变化的响应至关重要。已采用多种方法来评估珊瑚钙化速率，但确实有必要对这些方法进行比较，以确保产生高质量且可相互比较的结果。在本研究中，我们评估了四种方法（总碱度异常、钙异常、45Ca同位素吸收和13C同位素吸收）以确定构建礁石的珊瑚Stylophora pistillata的钙化情况。鉴于环境条件对此过程的重要性，该研究在两种pH值（环境水平与低水平）和两种光照条件（光照与黑暗）下进行。