Why do we study impact of Ocean Acidification?

The world’s oceans are slowly becoming more acidic. In the last 150 years, the pH of the oceans has dropped by ~ 0.1 units. Estimates of future levels of atmospheric CO₂ vary, but modelling shows that the pH in the ocean is likely to fall by 0.2 – 0.4 pH units by the year 2100. These changes will have significant effects on marine organisms, especially those with calcareous skeletons such as echinoderms. Moreover, alarmingly little is known about the long term impact of predicted pH changes on marine invertebrate larval development.

The aim of our project is to study the quantitative (survival, growth, etc.) and qualitative (skeleton formation, phenotype, etc.) impacts of acidification (using a realistic near-future predicted range, with a low variation of 0.2-0.4 units) on the long term development of key marine invertebrate organisms.