Abstract
The effects of ocean acidification alone or in combination with warming on coral metabolism have been extensively investigated, whereas none of these studies consider that most coral reefs near shore are already impacted by other natural anthropogenic inputs such as metal pollution. It is likely that projected ocean acidification levels will aggravate coral reef health. We first investigated how ocean acidification interacts with one near shore locally abundant metal on the physiology of two major reef-building corals: Stylophora pistillata and Acropora muricata. Two pH levels (pHT 8.02; pCO2 366 μatm and pHT 7.75; pCO2 1140 μatm) and two cobalt concentrations (natural, 0.03 μg L-1 and polluted, 0.2 μg L-1) were tested during five weeks in aquaria. We found that, for both species, cobalt input decreased significantly their growth rates by 28% while it stimulated their photosystem II, with higher values of rETRmax (relative Electron Transport Rate). Elevated pCO2 levels acted differently on the coral rETRmax values and did not affect their growth rates. No consistent interaction was found between pCO2 levels and cobalt concentrations. We also measured in situ the effect of higher cobalt concentrations (1.06 ± 0.16 μg L-1) on A. muricata using benthic chamber experiments. At this elevated concentration, cobalt decreased simultaneously coral growth and photosynthetic rates, indicating that the toxic threshold for this pollutant has been reached for both host cells and zooxanthellae. Our results from both aquaria and in situ experiments, suggest that these coral species are not particularly sensitive to high pCO2 conditions but they are to ecologically relevant cobalt concentrations. Our study reveals that some reefs may be yet subjected to deleterious pollution levels, and even if no interaction between pCO2 levels and cobalt concentration has been found, it is likely that coral metabolism will be weakened if they are subjected to additional threats such as temperature increase, other heavy metals, and eutrophication.
Highlights
Recent studies have highlighted how coral reefs are extremely delicate systems and how they may be altered by human activities (e.g. [1])
We investigated in situ the effects of higher cobalt concentrations on coral metabolism through benthic chamber experiments
A. muricata Fv/Fm were not affected by both cobalt concentration and pCO2 treatments (2-way ANOVA, p > 0.05; Table 1), while rETRmax values for this species significantly varied between treatments (2-way ANOVA, p > 0.05; Table 1)
Summary
Recent studies have highlighted how coral reefs are extremely delicate systems and how they may be altered by human activities (e.g. [1]). They can be summarized in the following: inhibition of coral fertilization and reduced reproductive success [14,15,16], decreased settlement and survival of coral larvae [17]; changes in the rates of photosynthesis resulted in a decrease in coral calcification and growth rates during the juvenile polyp stage [18,19]; loss of zooxanthellae in coral tissue ( called “coral bleaching”) [18,20]; enhanced coral mortality [20,21] All these experimental studies, using very high metal levels, highlighted the harmful role played by metals when in excess. We investigated in situ the effects of higher cobalt concentrations on coral metabolism through benthic chamber experiments
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