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Glimpse into the future of acidic oceans shows ecosystems transformed
http://www.news.ucdavis.edu/search/news_detail.lasso?id=10658[font face=Serif][font size=5]Glimpse into the future of acidic oceans shows ecosystems transformed[/font]
July 8, 2013
[font size=3]Ocean acidification may create an impact similar to extinction on marine ecosystems, according to a study released today by the University of California, Davis.
The study, published online in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, found that ocean acidification can degrade not only individual species, as past studies have shown, but entire ecosystems. This results in a homogenized marine community, dominated by fewer plants and animals.
“The background, low-grade stress caused by ocean acidification can cause a whole shift in the ecosystem so that everything is dominated by the same plants, which tend to be turf algae,” said lead author Kristy Kroeker, a postdoctoral researcher at the Bodega Marine Laboratory at UC Davis.
“In most ecosystems, there are lots of different colorful patches of plants and animals -- of algae, of sponges, of anemones,” Kroeker said. “With ocean acidification, you lose that patchiness. We call it a loss of functional diversity; everything looks the same.”
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1216464110July 8, 2013
[font size=3]Ocean acidification may create an impact similar to extinction on marine ecosystems, according to a study released today by the University of California, Davis.
The study, published online in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, found that ocean acidification can degrade not only individual species, as past studies have shown, but entire ecosystems. This results in a homogenized marine community, dominated by fewer plants and animals.
“The background, low-grade stress caused by ocean acidification can cause a whole shift in the ecosystem so that everything is dominated by the same plants, which tend to be turf algae,” said lead author Kristy Kroeker, a postdoctoral researcher at the Bodega Marine Laboratory at UC Davis.
“In most ecosystems, there are lots of different colorful patches of plants and animals -- of algae, of sponges, of anemones,” Kroeker said. “With ocean acidification, you lose that patchiness. We call it a loss of functional diversity; everything looks the same.”
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