TY - JOUR
T1 - Additive impacts of deoxygenation and acidification threaten marine biota.
AU - Steckbauer, Alexandra
AU - Klein, Shannon
AU - Duarte, Carlos M.
N1 - KAUST Repository Item: Exported on 2020-10-01
Acknowledged KAUST grant number(s): BAS/1/1071-01-01
Acknowledgements: This research was funded by King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) through project BAS/1/1071-01-01. We thank C.J. Gobler and H. Baumann for providing prompt access to data. We thank the editors(s) and anonymous reviewers for their critical feedback and suggested edits of the article.
PY - 2020/6/26
Y1 - 2020/6/26
N2 - Deoxygenation in coastal and open-ocean ecosystems rarely exists in isolation but occurs concomitantly with acidification. Here, we first combine meta-data of experimental assessments from across the globe to investigate the potential interactive impacts of deoxygenation and acidification on a broad range of marine taxa. We then characterize the differing degrees of deoxygenation and acidification tested in our dataset using a ratio between the partial pressure of oxygen and carbon dioxide (pO2 /pCO2 ) to assess how biological processes change under an extensive, yet diverse range of pO2 and pCO2 conditions. The dataset comprised 375 experimental comparisons and revealed predominantly additive but variable effects (91.7%-additive, 6.0%-synergistic, 2.3%-antagonistic) of the dual stressors, yielding negative impacts across almost all responses examined. Our data indicates that the pO2 /pCO2 -ratio offers a simplified metric to characterize the extremity of the concurrent stressors and shows that more severe impacts occurred when ratios represented more extreme deoxygenation and acidification conditions. Importantly, our analysis highlights the need to assess the concurrent impacts of deoxygenation and acidification on marine taxa and that assessments considering the impact of O2 depletion alone will likely underestimate the impacts of deoxygenation events and their ecosystem-wide consequences.
AB - Deoxygenation in coastal and open-ocean ecosystems rarely exists in isolation but occurs concomitantly with acidification. Here, we first combine meta-data of experimental assessments from across the globe to investigate the potential interactive impacts of deoxygenation and acidification on a broad range of marine taxa. We then characterize the differing degrees of deoxygenation and acidification tested in our dataset using a ratio between the partial pressure of oxygen and carbon dioxide (pO2 /pCO2 ) to assess how biological processes change under an extensive, yet diverse range of pO2 and pCO2 conditions. The dataset comprised 375 experimental comparisons and revealed predominantly additive but variable effects (91.7%-additive, 6.0%-synergistic, 2.3%-antagonistic) of the dual stressors, yielding negative impacts across almost all responses examined. Our data indicates that the pO2 /pCO2 -ratio offers a simplified metric to characterize the extremity of the concurrent stressors and shows that more severe impacts occurred when ratios represented more extreme deoxygenation and acidification conditions. Importantly, our analysis highlights the need to assess the concurrent impacts of deoxygenation and acidification on marine taxa and that assessments considering the impact of O2 depletion alone will likely underestimate the impacts of deoxygenation events and their ecosystem-wide consequences.
UR - http://hdl.handle.net/10754/663894
UR - https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/gcb.15252
U2 - 10.1111/gcb.15252
DO - 10.1111/gcb.15252
M3 - Article
C2 - 32583519
SN - 1354-1013
JO - Global change biology
JF - Global change biology
ER -