Does seawater acidification affect survival, growth and shell integrity in bivalve juveniles?

Anthropogenic emissions of carbon dioxide are leading to decreases in pH and changes in the carbonate chemistry of seawater. Ocean acidification may negatively affect the ability of marine organisms to produce calcareous structures while also influencing their physiological responses and growth. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effects of reduced pH on the survival, growth and shell integrity of juveniles of two marine bivalves from the Northern Adriatic sea: the Mediterranean mussel Mytilus galloprovincialis and the striped venus clam Chamelea gallina. An outdoor flow-through plant was set up and two pH levels (natural seawater pH as a control, pH 7.4 as the treatment) were tested in long-term experiments. Mortality was low throughout the first experiment for both mussels and clams, but a significant increase, which was sensibly higher in clams, was observed at the end of the experiment (6 months). Significant decreases in the live weight (-26%) and, surprisingly, in the shell length (-5%) were observed in treated clams, but not in mussels. In the controls of both species, no shell damage was ever recorded; in the treated mussels and clams, damage proceeded via different modes and to different extents. The severity of shell injuries was maximal in the mussels after just 3 months of exposure to a reduced pH, whereas it progressively increased in clams until the end of the experiment. In shells of both species, the damaged area increased throughout the experiment, peaking at 35% in mussels and 11% in clams. The shell thickness of the treated and control animals significantly decreased after 3 months in clams and after 6 months in mussels. In the second experiment (3 months), only juvenile mussels were exposed to a reduced pH. After 3 months, the mussels at a natural pH level or pH 7.4 did not differ in their survival, shell length or live weight. Conversely, shell damage was clearly visible in the treated mussels from the 1st month onward. Monitoring the chemistry of seawater carbonates always showed aragonite undersaturation at 7.4 pH, whereas calcite undersaturation occurred in only 37% of the measurements. The present study highlighted the contrasting effects of acidification in two bivalve species living in the same region, although not exactly in the same habitat.

Data compilation on the biological response to ocean acidification: environmental and experimental context of data sets and related literature

The exponential growth of studies on the biological response to ocean acidification over the last few decades has generated a large amount of data. To facilitate data comparison, a data compilation hosted at the data publisher PANGAEA was initiated in 2008 and is updated on a regular basis (doi:10.1594/PANGAEA.149999). By January 2015, a total of 581 data sets (over 4 000 000 data points) from 539 papers had been archived. Here we present the developments of this data compilation five years since its first description by Nisumaa et al. (2010). Most of study sites from which data archived are still in the Northern Hemisphere and the number of archived data from studies from the Southern Hemisphere and polar oceans are still relatively low. Data from 60 studies that investigated the response of a mix of organisms or natural communities were all added after 2010, indicating a welcomed shift from the study of individual organisms to communities and ecosystems. The initial imbalance of considerably more data archived on calcification and primary production than on other processes has improved. There is also a clear tendency towards more data archived from multifactorial studies after 2010. For easier and more effective access to ocean acidification data, the ocean acidification community is strongly encouraged to contribute to the data archiving effort, and help develop standard vocabularies describing the variables and define best practices for archiving ocean acidification data.