Citation:

bg-9-3449-2012

Always quote citation above when using data! You can download the citation in several formats below.

RIS Citation BibTeX Citation Text Citation Facebook Twitter

Abstract:

The coccolithophore Emiliania huxleyi is a marine phytoplankton species capable of forming small calcium carbonate scales (coccoliths) which cover the organic part of the cell. Calcification rates of E. huxleyi are known to be sensitive to changes in seawater carbonate chemistry. It has, however, not yet been clearly determined how these changes are reflected in size and weight of individual coccoliths and which specific parameter(s) of the carbonate system drive morphological modifications. Here, we compare data on coccolith size, weight, and malformation from a set of five experiments with a large diversity of carbonate chemistry conditions. This diversity allows distinguishing the influence of individual carbonate chemistry parameters such as carbon dioxide (CO2), bicarbonate (HCO3- ), carbonate ion (CO32-), and protons (H+) on the measured parameters. Measurements of fine-scale morphological structures reveal an increase of coccolith malformation with decreasing pH suggesting that H+ is the major factor causing malformations. Coccolith distal shield area varies from about 5 to 11 µm2. Changes in size seem to be mainly induced by varying [HCO3- ] and [H+] although influence of [CO32-] cannot be entirely ruled out. Changes in coccolith weight were proportional to changes in size. Increasing CaCO3 production rates are reflected in an increase in coccolith weight and an increase of the number of coccoliths formed per unit time. The combined investigation of morphological features and coccolith production rates presented in this study may help to interpret data derived from sediment cores, where coccolith morphology is used to reconstruct calcification rates in the water column.

Project(s):

Biological Impacts of Ocean Acidification (BIOACID)

Parameter(s):

#	Name	Short Name	Unit	Principal Investigator	Method/Device	Comment
1	Treatment	Treat		Bach, Lennart Thomas
2	Carbon, inorganic, dissolved	DIC	µmol/kg	Bach, Lennart Thomas
3	Alkalinity, total	AT	µmol/kg	Bach, Lennart Thomas
4	pH	pH		Bach, Lennart Thomas
5	Carbon dioxide, partial pressure	pCO2	µatm	Bach, Lennart Thomas
6	Bicarbonate ion	[HCO3]-	µmol/kg	Bach, Lennart Thomas
7	Carbonate ion	[CO3]2-	µmol/kg	Bach, Lennart Thomas
8	Carbon dioxide	CO2	µmol/kg	Bach, Lennart Thomas
9	Calcite saturation state	Omega Cal		Bach, Lennart Thomas
10	Aragonite saturation state	Omega Arg		Bach, Lennart Thomas
11	Cell size	Cell size	µm	Bach, Lennart Thomas
12	Particulate inorganic carbon production per cell	PIC prod/cell	pg/#/day	Bach, Lennart Thomas
13	Mass	Mass	µg	Bach, Lennart Thomas		mean coccolith weight
14	Mass, standard deviation	Mass std dev	±	Bach, Lennart Thomas		coccolith weight stdev
15	-	-		Bach, Lennart Thomas		CaCO3 prod/cell
16	Production	P	1/day	Bach, Lennart Thomas		number of coccoliths produced per day
17	Surface area	SA	µm²	Bach, Lennart Thomas		coccolith distal shield area mean
18	Surface area, standard deviation	SA std dev	±	Bach, Lennart Thomas
19	Length	l	µm	Bach, Lennart Thomas		mean coccolith length
20	Length, standard deviation	l std dev	±	Bach, Lennart Thomas
21	Width	w	µm	Bach, Lennart Thomas		mean coccolith width
22	Width, standard deviation	w std dev	±	Bach, Lennart Thomas	Measured
23	Length	l	µm	Bach, Lennart Thomas		mean central area length
24	Length, standard deviation	l std dev	±	Bach, Lennart Thomas
25	Width	w	µm	Bach, Lennart Thomas		mean central area width
26	Width, standard deviation	w std dev	±	Bach, Lennart Thomas	Measured
27	Height/width ratio	Height/width		Bach, Lennart Thomas		mean coccolith length/coccolith width ratio
28	Height/width ratio, standard deviation	Height/width std dev	±	Bach, Lennart Thomas
29	Height/width ratio	Height/width		Bach, Lennart Thomas		mean central area length/central area width ratio
30	Height/width ratio, standard deviation	Height/width std dev	±	Bach, Lennart Thomas
31	Surface area	SA	µm²	Bach, Lennart Thomas		mean calculated distal shield surface area
32	Surface area, standard deviation	SA std dev	±	Bach, Lennart Thomas
33	Surface area	SA	µm²	Bach, Lennart Thomas		mean calculated central area surface area
34	Surface area, standard deviation	SA std dev	±	Bach, Lennart Thomas
35	Coccoliths, malformed and incomplete	Cocco malformed	%	Bach, Lennart Thomas		mean malformation
36	Coccoliths, malformed and incomplete, standard deviation	Cocco malformed std dev	±	Bach, Lennart Thomas

License:

Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported (CC-BY-3.0)

Size:

1977 data points

Download Data

Download dataset as tab-delimited text — use the following character encoding:

View dataset as HTML