• Energy Research
• 2021-2025close
• 14. Life underwater close

The data comprise Climber3alpha+C simulations created by Matthias Hofmann (PIK) as part of the Work Package 2.1 of the COMFORT project as well as the PyFerret scripts (written by Ralf Liebermann and Matthias Hofmann) used for their evaluation. The simulation data consist of snap_*.nc files and history.nc files for ocean, atmosphere and mixed layer depth (hmxl) performed for different idealized scenarios: CONTROL, double and fourfold atmospheric CO2 (CO2X2 and CO2X4), also with additional Greenland freshwater influx (CO2X2_HOSING and CO2X4_HOSING). Furthermore, tracer simulations (CONTROL, CO2X4, CO2X4_HOSING) and simulations with constant scavenging (CO2X4) are also included. The aim was to analyse the simulations regarding climate change-induced changes in marine biogeochemistry and primary production, which will be published under the title "Shutdown of Atlantic overturning circulation could cause persistent increase of primary production in the Pacific" (see Related Work). Simulation data were generated with Climber3alpha+C (Earth system model of intermediate complexity) and evaluated with PyFerret v7.41. CDO was used to aggregate monthly simulation data into annual means.

Local tide and wave conditions were recorded with a RBRduo TDǀwave sensor (RBR Ltd., Ontario/Canada). The sensor was bottom mounted in a shallow tidal creek (0.78 m NHN) through a steel girder (buried 0.3m deep in the sediment) and was positioned 10 cm above sediment surface, as was determined by using a portable differential GPS. This resulted in the sensor falling dry during low tide. For accurate depth calculations, raw pressure data were manually corrected for atmospheric pressure derived from a locally installed weather station. The sensor was pre-calibrated by the manufacturer and the sampling rate was 3 Hz with 1024 samples per burst at a sample interval of 10 min. Recorded data were internally logged until the readout with the Ruskin (V1.13.13) software. Date and time is given in UTC.Data handling was performed according to Zielinski et al. (2018): Post-processing of collected data was done using MATLAB (R2018a). Quality control was performed by (a) erasing data covering maintenance activities, (b) removing outliers, and (c) visually checks. Low-tide data is not removed, but were easily identified through the manually calculated water depth data, where all depths < 0.05m represented low tide data.

The atmosphere concentration of CO2 is steadily increasing and causing climate change. To achieve the Paris 1.5 or 2 oC target, negative emissions technologies must be deployed in addition to reducing carbon emissions. The ocean is a large carbon sink but the potential of marine primary producers to contribute to carbon neutrality remains unclear. Here we review the alterations to carbon capture and sequestration of marine primary producers (including traditional ‘blue carbon’ plants, microalgae, and macroalgae) in the Anthropocene, and, for the first time, assess and compare the potential of various marine primary producers to carbon neutrality and climate change mitigation via biogeoengineering approaches. The contributions of marine primary producers to carbon sequestration have been decreasing in the Anthropocene due to the decrease in biomass driven by direct anthropogenic activities and climate change. The potential of blue carbon plants (mangroves, saltmarshes, and seagrasses) is limited by the available areas for their revegetation. Microalgae appear to have a large potential due to their ubiquity but how to enhance their carbon sequestration efficiency is very complex and uncertain. On the other hand, macroalgae can play an essential role in mitigating climate change through extensive offshore cultivation due to higher carbon sequestration capacity and substantial available areas. This approach seems both technically and economically feasible due to the development of offshore aquaculture and a well-established market for macroalgal products. Synthesis and applications: This paper provides new insights and suggests promising directions for utilizing marine primary producers to achieve the Paris temperature target. We propose that macroalgae cultivation can play an essential role in attaining carbon neutrality and climate change mitigation, although its ecological impacts need to be assessed further. To calculate the parameters presented in Table 1, the relevant keywords "mangroves, salt marshes, macroalgae, microalgae, global area, net primary productivity, CO2 sequestration" were searched through the ISI Web of Science and Google Scholar in July 2021. Recent data published after 2010 were collected and used since area and productivity of plants change with decade. For data with limited availability, such as net primary productivity (NPP) of seagrasses and global area and NPP of wild macroalgae, data collection was extended back to 1980. Total NPP and CO2 sequestration for mangroves, salt marshes, seagrasses and wild macroalgae were obtained by the multiplication of area and NPP/CO2 sequestration density and subjected to error propagation analysis. Data were expressed as means ± standard error.

Patterns of movement of marine species can reflect strategies of reproduction and dispersal, species’ interactions, trophodynamics, and susceptibility to change, and thus critically inform how we manage populations and ecosystems. On coral reefs, the density and diversity of metazoan taxa is greatest in dead coral and rubble, which is suggested to fuel food webs from the bottom-up. Yet, biomass and secondary productivity in rubble is predominantly available in some of the smallest individuals, limiting how accessible this energy is to higher trophic levels. We address the bioavailability of motile coral reef cryptofauna based on small-scale patterns of emigration in rubble. We deployed modified RUbble Biodiversity Samplers (RUBS) and emergence traps in a shallow rubble patch at Heron Island, Great Barrier Reef, to detect community-level differences in the directional influx of motile cryptofauna under five habitat accessibility regimes. The mean density (0.13–4.5 ind.cm-3) and biomass (0.14–5.2 mg.cm-3) of cryptofauna were high and varied depending on microhabitat accessibility. Emergent zooplankton represented a distinct community (dominated by the Appendicularia and Calanoida) with the lowest density and biomass, indicating constraints on nocturnal resource availability. Mean cryptofauna density and biomass were greatest when interstitial access within rubble was blocked, driven by the rapid proliferation of small harpacticoid copepods from the rubble surface, leading to trophic simplification. Individuals with high biomass (e.g., decapods, gobies, and echinoderms) were greatest when interstitial access within rubble was unrestricted. Treatments with a closed rubble surface did not differ from those completely open, suggesting that top-down predation does not diminish rubble-derived resources. Our results show that conspecific cues and species’ interactions (e.g., competition and predation) within rubble are most critical in shaping ecological outcomes within the cryptobiome. These findings have implications for prey accessibility through trophic and community size structuring in rubble, which may become increasingly relevant as benthic reef complexity shifts in the Anthropocene. We address the bioavailability of coral reef cryptofauna in rubble based on small-scale patterns of emigration. We adapted the accessibility of Rubble Biodiversity Samplers (RUBS), models used to standardise biodiversity sampling in rubble (Wolfe and Mumby 2020), to explore the local movement patterns of rubble-dwelling fauna, with inference to predation processes within and beyond the cryptobenthos. Five treatments were developed to detect community-level differences in the directional influx of motile cryptofauna under various habitat accessibility regimes. Four of these treatments were developed by modifying accessibility into RUBS (https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4176644/files) to understand limitations on the directional influx and movement of cryptofauna within coral rubble patches using four treatments; (1) open (completely accessible), (2) interstitial access (top closed), (3) surficial access (sides and bottom closed), and (4) raised (above rubble substratum). The fifth treatment involved a series of emergence plankton traps, designed to target demersal cryptofauna that vertically migrate from within the rubble benthos at night, given emergent zooplankton biomass and diversity are greatest at night. Fieldwork was conducted over several weeks (11th September to 5th October 2021) in a shallow (~3–5 m depth) reef slope site on the southern margin of Heron Island (-23˚26.845’ S, 151˚54.732’ E), Great Barrier Reef, Australia (Fig. 1). All collections were conducted under the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority permit G20/44613.1.

This dataset contains the data used in the manuscript "Physiological adaptation of the diatom Pseudo-nitzschia delicatissima under copper starvation" accepted for publication in April 2023 in Marine Environmental Research. In the open ocean and particularly in iron (Fe)-limited environment, copper (Cu) deficiency might limit the growth of phytoplankton species. Cu is an essential trace metal used in electron-transfer reactions, such as respiration and photosynthesis, when bound to specific enzymes. Some phytoplankton species, such as the diatom Pseudo-nitzschia spp. can cope with Cu starvation through adaptative strategies. This dataset contains the data collected during the experimental starvation of a strain of the diatom P. delicatissima under laboratory controlled conditions.

We studied if functional traits related to resource preemption (light and inorganic nutrients) exert control on space preemption of tropical seagrass meadows. Additionally, we studied if space preemption changed under different eutrophication scenarios. We took seagrass abundance data to study space preemption, seagrass traits data to study their effect on space preemption and eutrophication indicators to evaluate the level of eutrophication at each site/sampling event. The data was collected in Unguja Island (Zanzibar Archipealgo, Tanzania) in seven sites/sampling events (Harbor, Chapwani, Changuu, Bweleo, Fumba, Mangroves and Marumbi). Each site/sampling event comprised a subtidal seagrass meadow (2-4 meters depth) of around 2500 square meters, delimited by the coastline and a fringing reef. The data was taken between the 26.09.2016 to the 05.10.2016. In each site/sampling event, five 50 meters transects were deployed perpendicular to the coast and paralel to each other, approximately separated by 50 meters. The areas enclosed beweeen the transects were names A, B, C and D. Macroalgae biomass was collected as an indicator of eutrophication. Macroalgae biomass was quantified along five 50-m transects per site/sampling event, set perpendicular to the coast and parallel to each other, separated by ~50 meters. We collected the macroalgae present in three random 0.25x0.25 meters quadrats per transect. The macroalgae samples were cleaned of sediments and rinsed with water. They were then dried at 50°C in a forced air oven until constant dry weight. The macroalgae biomass was calculated as the grams of dry weight divided by the area of the quadrat (grams of dry weight per square meter).

The European Multidisciplinary Seafloor and water column Observatory (EMSO-ERIC, https://emso.eu/) is a research infrastructure distributed throughout Europe for seabed and water column observatories. It aims to further explore the oceans, better understand the phenomena that occur on the seabed, and elucidate the critical role that these phenomena play in global Earth systems. This observatory is based on observation sites (or nodes) that have been deployed in strategic locations in European seas, from the Arctic to the Atlantic, from the Mediterranean to the Black Sea. There are currently eleven deepwater nodes plus four shallow water test nodes. EMSO-Western Ligurian Sea Node (https://www.emso-fr.org/fr) is a second generation permanent submarine observatory deployed offshore of Toulon, France, as a follow up of the pioneering ANTARES neutrino telescope. This submarine network, deployed at a depth of 2450m, is part of KM3NeT (https://www.km3net.org/) which has a modular topology designed to connect up to 120 neutrino detection units, i.e. ten times more than ANTARES. The Earth and Sea Science (ESS) instrumentation connected to KM3NeT is based on two complementary components: an Instrumented Interface Module (MII) and an autonomous mooring line (ALBATROSS). The ALBATROSS line is an inductive instrumented mooring line (2000 m) composed of an acoustic communication system, two inductive cables equipped with CTD-O2 sensors, current meters and two instrumented buoys. The MII and the ALMBATROSS mooring line communicate through an acoustic link. The MII is connected to an electro-optical cable via the KM3NeT node allowing the data transfer from and to the land based controlled room.

Raw data and script relevant to the article: ‘The public perception of the role, importance and vulnerability of seagrass. A case study from the Great Barrier Reef’ Software/equipment used to create/collect the data: Survey Monkey for data collection Software/equipment used to manipulate/analyse the data: R for statistical analysis Leximancer for content analysis

Poleward range extensions by warm-adapted sea urchins are switching temperate marine ecosystems from kelp-dominated to barren-dominated systems that favour the establishment of range-extending tropical fishes. Yet, such tropicalization may be buffered by ocean acidification, which reduces urchin grazing performance and the urchin barrens that tropical range-extending fishes prefer. Using ecosystems experiencing natural warming and acidification, we show that ocean acidification could buffer warming-facilitated tropicalization by reducing urchin populations (by 87%) and inhibiting the formation of barrens. This buffering effect of CO2 enrichment was observed at natural CO2 vents that are associated with a shift from a barren-dominated to a turf-dominated state, which we found is less favourable to tropical fishes. Together, these observations suggest that ocean acidification may buffer the tropicalization effect of ocean warming against urchin barren formation via multiple processes (fewer urchins and barrens) and consequently slow the increasing rate of tropicalization of temperate fish communities. In order to allow full comparability with other ocean acidification data sets, the R package seacarb (Gattuso et al, 2021) was used to compute a complete and consistent set of carbonate system variables, as described by Nisumaa et al. (2010). In this dataset the original values were archived in addition with the recalculated parameters (see related PI). The date of carbonate chemistry calculation by seacarb is 2021-07-26.