Ecosystems
Ecosystems are highly complex webs of species that mix in space and time, creating intricate relationships and feedback loops that are difficult to study, regardless of changes in acidification.
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Ecosystem Impacts
An ecosystem comprises a community of living things, their non-living environment, and the interactions that link species to one other and to their surroundings. Acidification, among other climate stressors, will affect individual species and the ecosystems they inhabit in diverse ways. Understanding the influence of acidification on entire ecosystems is difficult due to both the complexity of the chemistry and the complexity of marine ecosystems themselves.
Species Interactions under Acidified Conditions
When acidification impacts one species, whether that’s in a positive or negative way, it can cause a ripple effect that alters ecosystem dynamics at large.
For example:
- Changes in species abundance or behavior can alter food webs and predator/prey dynamics.
- Loss of habitat-forming species, like corals, can leave marine life without shelter or nursery habitat.
- Some species can alter their abiotic environment, to the benefit (or detriment) of other species. For example, faster growth by seagrasses due to elevated CO2 may theoretically help to locally increase pH.
Environmental Factors Modulate pH
The severity of ocean acidification, and the impact it has on species, varies based on local and regional environmental conditions. Because of this, organisms living in vastly different ecosystems, like estuaries versus the open ocean, experience different pH “weather”. In contrast to the open ocean, the coastal ocean is characterized by large fluctuations in pH on timescales ranging from hours to years.
pH “weather” events are influenced by:
- Precipitation
- Nutrient runoff & eutrophication
- Cycles of biological activity (respiration produces CO2 while photosynthesis consumes CO2)
- Oceanic events like upwelling
Co-stressors in the Marine Environment
Oftentimes, acidification is not the only stressor marine species are facing. When considering temperatures, eutrophication, oxygen availability, and more, the ultimate impact of acidification on marine life can change; sometimes the abiotic environment exacerbates acidification effects or in other cases buffers against them. Careful and extensive experiments are necessary to understand how low pH interacts with other environmental variables for different species.
Decoding Acidification Effects on Ecosystems
Many acidification experiments to date have been performed with only a single species in isolation. However, ecosystems are a complex network of species that interact via food webs, symbiotic relationships, and a myriad of other mechanisms. More and more, experts are working on understanding the intricacies of ecosystem response to acidification.
References
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Saba, G. K., Goldsmith, K. A., Cooley, S. R., Grosse, D., Meseck, S. L., Miller, A. W., Phelan, B., Poach, M., Rheault, R., St.Laurent, K., Testa, J. M., Weis, J. S., & Zimmerman, R. (2019). Recommended priorities for research on ecological impacts of ocean and coastal acidification in the U.S. Mid-Atlantic. Estuarine, Coastal and Shelf Science, 225, 106188. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecss.2019.04.022
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