Acidic Oceans: How Will Copepods Cope?

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Morgan Meyers
Martin Kean

Abstract

Early OA research quickly established the serious threat that more acidic oceans directly impose on calcifying organisms such as corals and bivalves because their calcium carbonate structures dissolve more easily and are more difficult to build as seawater pH decreases. Research continued to establish baseline effects of OA on individual organisms, before looking at multiple species responses and effects of double stressors (e.g., low pH + high temperature). Current OA research is leaning into community-level responses to two or three environmental drivers simultaneously, with the ultimate goal of understanding effects of OA within the context of multiple stressors and entire ecosystems.

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Author Biographies

Morgan Meyers, Botany and Marine Science departments at the University of Otago.

Morgan Meyers is a PhD candidate in the Botany and Marine Science departments at the University of Otago. Her  research is focused on how climate change will impact various marine plankton processes and zooplankton distribution patterns in the waters off the Otago coast. The trials mentioned in this article were conducted as part of the third CARIM mesocosm experiment at NIWA Wellington with the support of Moira Decima (NIWA), Qingshan Luan (NIWA; Chinese Academy of Fisheries Science), Cliff Law (NIWA), Mark Gall (NIWA), Neill Barr (NIWA), Linn Hoffmann (University of Otago, Department of Botany), and Steve Wing (University of Otago, Department of Marine Science).

Martin Kean, Otago Polytechnic.

Martin Kean is a senior lecturer in design at the Otago Polytechnic.