Reduction in size of the calcifying phytoplankton Calcidiscus leptoporus to environmental changes between the Holocene and modern Subantarctic Southern Ocean
Rigual-Hernández, Andrés S. (Universidad de Salamanca. Departamento de Geología)
Langer, Gerald (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Institut de Ciència i Tecnologia Ambientals)
Sierro, Francisco Javier (Universidad de Salamanca. Departamento de Geología)
Bostock, Helen (University of Queensland)
Sánchez-Santos, José Manuel (Universidad de Salamanca. Departamento de Estadística)
Nodder, Scott Davidson (National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research)
Trull, Tom W. (Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation)
Ballegeer, Anne Marie (Universidad de Salamanca. Departamento de Didáctica de las Matemáticas y de las Ciencias Experimentales)
Moy, Andrew D. (University of Tasmania)
Eriksen, Ruth (Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation)
Makowka, Laura (Universidad de Salamanca. Departamento de Geología)
Béjard, Thibauld M. (Universidad de Salamanca. Departamento de Geología)
Rigal-Muñoz, Francisco Henri (Universidad de Salamanca. Departamento de Geología)
Hernández-Martín, Alberto (Universidad de Salamanca. Departamento de Geología)
Zorita-Viota, María (Universidad de Salamanca. Departamento de Geología)
Flores, José Abel (Universidad de Salamanca. Departamento de Geología)

Data:	2023
Resum:	The Subantarctic Zone of the Southern Ocean plays a disproportionally large role on the Earth system. Model projections predict rapid environmental change in the coming decades, including ocean acidification, warming, and changes in nutrient supply which pose a serious risk for marine ecosystems. Yet despite the importance of the Subantarctic Zone, annual and inter-annual time series are extremely rare, leading to important uncertainties about the current state of its ecosystems and hindering predictions of future response to climate change. Moreover, as the longest observational time series available are only a few decades long, it remains unknown whether marine pelagic ecosystems have already responded to ongoing environmental change during the industrial era. Here, we take advantage of multiple sampling efforts - monitoring of surface layer water properties together with sediment trap, seafloor sediment and sediment core sampling - to reconstruct the modern and pre-industrial state of the keystone calcifying phytoplankton Calcidiscus leptoporus, central to the global marine carbonate cycle. Morphometric measurements reveal that modern C. leptoporus coccoliths are 15% lighter and 25% smaller than those preserved in the underlying Holocene-aged sediments. The cumulative effect of multiple environmental factors appears responsible for the coccolith size variations since the Last Deglaciation, with warming and ocean acidification most likely playing a predominant role during the industrial era. Notably, extrapolation of our results suggests a future reduction in cell and coccolith size which will have a negative impact on the efficiency of the biological pump in the Southern Ocean through a reduction of carbonate ballasting. Lastly, our results tentatively suggest that C. leptoporus coccolith size could be used as a palaeo-proxy for growth rate. Future culture experiments will be needed to test this hypothesis.
Ajuts:	European Commission 748690 Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación PID2021-126495NBC33 Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación CEX2019-000940-M
Nota:	Unidad de excelencia María de Maeztu CEX2019-000940-M
Drets:	Aquest document està subjecte a una llicència d'ús Creative Commons. Es permet la reproducció total o parcial, la distribució, la comunicació pública de l'obra i la creació d'obres derivades, fins i tot amb finalitats comercials, sempre i quan es reconegui l'autoria de l'obra original.
Llengua:	Anglès
Document:	Article ; recerca ; Versió publicada
Matèria:	Calcidiscus leptoporus ; Coccolithophores ; Environmental change ; Holocene ; Industrial era ; Ocean acidification ; Sediment trap experiment ; Southern Ocean
Publicat a:	Frontiers in marine science, Vol. 10 (June 2023) , art. 1159884, ISSN 2296-7745

DOI: 10.3389/fmars.2023.1159884

19 p, 3.7 MB

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