Letter abstract
Nature Geoscience 2, 344 - 348 (2009)
Published online: 12 April 2009 | doi:10.1038/ngeo500
There is an Erratum (21 May 2009) associated with this Letter.
Subject Categories: Biogeochemistry | Climate science
Survival of mussels in extremely acidic waters on a submarine volcano
Verena Tunnicliffe1,2, Kimberley T. A. Davies1,6, David A. Butterfield3, Robert W. Embley4, Jonathan M. Rose1 & William W. Chadwick Jr5
Increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide levels are causing ocean acidification1, 2, compromising the ability of some marine organisms to build and maintain support structures3 as the equilibrium state of inorganic carbon moves away from calcium carbonate4. Few marine organisms tolerate conditions where ocean pH falls significantly below today's value of about 8.1 and aragonite and calcite saturation values below 1 (refs 5, 6). Here we report dense clusters of the vent mussel Bathymodiolus brevior in natural conditions of pH values between 5.36 and 7.29 on northwest Eifuku volcano, Mariana arc, where liquid carbon dioxide and hydrogen sulphide emerge in a hydrothermal setting. We find that both shell thickness and daily growth increments in shells from northwest Eifuku are only about half those recorded from mussels living in water with pH>7.8. Low pH may therefore also be implicated in metabolic impairment7. We identify four-decade-old mussels, but suggest that the mussels can survive for so long only if their protective shell covering remains intact: crabs that could expose the underlying calcium carbonate to dissolution are absent from this setting. The mussels' ability to precipitate shells in such low-pH conditions is remarkable. Nevertheless, the vulnerability of molluscs to predators is likely to increase in a future ocean with low pH.
- Department of Biology, University of Victoria, PO Box 3080, Victoria, British Columbia V8W 3N5, Canada
- School of Earth & Ocean Sciences, University of Victoria, British Columbia V8W 3P6, Canada
- Joint Institute for the Study of the Atmosphere and Oceans, University of Washington, Box 354925, Seattle, Washington 98115, USA
- Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory, NOAA, 2115 SE O.S.U. Dr., Newport, Oregon 97365-5258, USA
- CIMRS, Oregon State University, 2115 SE O.S.U. Dr., Newport, Oregon 97365-5258, USA
- Present address: Department of Oceanography, Dalhousie University, 1355 Oxford Street, Halifax, Nova Scotia B3H 4J1, Canada
Correspondence to: Verena Tunnicliffe1,2 e-mail: verenat@uvic.ca
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