Ocean Acidification in the Open Ocean

Collaborators
Ann Tarrant (WHOI) Gareth Lawson (WHOI) Peter Wiebe (WHOI) Andone Lavery (WHOI) Zhaohui 'Aleck' Wang (WHOI)

This collaboration joins bioacoustics experts, carbonate chemists and molecular biologists, to determine how carbon dioxide (CO₂) affects the physiology and distribution of pteropods in the NW Atlantic and NE Pacific Oceans. This project relies on the natural differences between the hydrography of the NW Atlantic and NE Pacific Oceans to provide a natural experiment investigating whether masses of hypercapnic (high CO₂) water act as barriers to thecosome pteropod diel migration.  My particular focus is assessing whether various Pacific and Atlantic species and sub-species of pteropods have different metabolic responses to CO₂ and O₂ separately, and additively (Maas et al, in revision). I am also working on a new project to explore how natural seasonal changes in CO₂ in the Gulf of Maine predisposes the local species, Limacina retroversa, to laboratory exposure to three levels of CO₂.