Question

1) Name three commercially important organisms that already are impacted by ocean acidification.

2) Carbon dioxide seeps as “natural laboratories” to study the potential impacts of ocean acidification on coral ecosystems 50 to 100 years into the future (i.e., Papua New Guinea). Explain how coral communities compare at a “normal” versus seep site in regard to:

How does coral diversity differ?

Where are corals, where are algae dominating?

Where do you find a higher number and diversity of associated reef organisms (i.e., fish)?

3) Ocean acidification and fish. Give three specific examples of how fish species (i.e., clown fish, pollock) may be directly (e.g., physiologically) or indirectly (food web shifts) affected by ocean acidification. Explain!

Answer 1

Question

1. Three important commercially important organims that are affected by ocean modification are:

I. Cold-water corals.

II. Sea -urchins

III. Octopus

2. Corals are found in both deep and shallow water. On the other-hand, reef-building corals are found in shallow tropical and subtropical water. The green- algae are dominating at the upper layer of the water as they require sunlight to perform the process of photosynthesis. The brown and red algae are found in the deeper water. The high diversity of associated reef organism is found in deep and shallow water.

3. Three specific examples of how fidh species may be directly or indirectly affected by ocean modification are:

I. Fish eat many zooplankton and plankton. Therefore, if the fish eat planktons, the chemicals present in these animals also accumulate in fish too. This phenomeon is known as biomagnification.

II. Many zooplanton and phytoplankton are eaten by the fish as a food but due to the ocean acidification, these animals would die and fish will get less food or no food.

III. The ocean acidification lead to the death of slime moulds that are main decomposers of the ocean. Therefore, death of these planktons would lead to undecomposed material in ocean that imbalanace food web of ocean where fish is present.