Calcifying organisms of both neritic and pelagic environments are now known to be sensitive to changes in ocean chemistry. There is clear evidence that the carbonate equilibria of the oceans is shifting in response to increasing atmospheric CO2 concentrations, and there is mounting evidence that calcification rates of several major groups of marine calcifiers will decrease as CO2 concentrations continue to rise. There is also evidence that dissolution rates of these carbonates will increase in response to CO2 forcing. Although planktonic and benthic calcifiers of both neritic and pelagic communities appear to display a similar response to increased CO2 forcing, important differences exist. The PIs propose to organize a workshop of experts (~35-40 participants) in marine calcification with the following objectives: (1) to provide a forum (including a website) where expert scientists can exchange information; (2) to synthesize information regarding the effects of changing ocean carbonate chemistry on coral reef calcifiers and other marine organisms, and (3) to identify future research directions and promote collaborative research.
Intellectual Merit: This workshop will build on previous efforts to address marine ecosystem response to increased atmospheric CO2. A U.S. JGOFS workshop on marine calcification (Iglesias-Rodriguez et al. 2002) primarily considered the effects on open ocean calcifiers and how reduced calcification would affect the ocean carbon cycle. The recent UNESCO-sponsored workshop The Ocean in a High-CO2 World identified priority research areas regarding organismal (including, but not focused on calcifying organisms) and ecosystem response to increased CO2, and also recommended approaches to study them from small-scale laboratory experiments, through large-scale field experiments and modeling. This workshop is designed to initiate a practical discussion among experts in the calcification field to identify specific, testable hypotheses, and to evaluate existing and promising methodologies for testing those hypotheses.
Broader Impacts: Several goals of this workshop are to increase understanding, both within the scientific community and the general public, of how increased atmospheric CO2 concentrations can affect marine calcification. A product of this workshop will be website that will serve as a central information repository for those interested in doing research in this field. The site will also include general information on how to relate this information in classrooms (several of the PIs have been involved as consultants on K-12 and undergraduate exercises that demonstrate the effects of increasing CO2 on water chemistry and carbonate dissolution). Another of goal of the PIs is to recommend experimental standards that will allow better comparison of research results. Several invitations for this workshop will be reserved for graduate students and postdocs in this field, and we will encourage active participation of these young researchers by involving them in workshop activities and website development
