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  • Matters Arising
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Methods matter in repeating ocean acidification studies

Nature volume 586, pages E20–E24 (2020)Cite this article

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Matters Arising to this article was published on 21 October 2020

The Original Article was published on 08 January 2020

arising from T. D. Clark et al. Nature https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-019-1903-y (2020)

In their study, Clark et al.1 suggest that previous studies on the effects of elevated levels of CO2 on the behaviour of coral reef fishes are not repeatable and that ocean acidification does not impair the behaviour of coral reef fishes, even though six significant behavioural effects were detected in their study, each of which was dismissed for a different reason. They then compare the means and variances of six previous ocean acidification studies in fish with a data distribution that is derived from a multi-species compilation of their own data to conclude that the results of previous studies are statistically improbable. However, Clark et al.1 did not closely repeat previous studies, as they did not replicate key species, used different life stages and ecological histories and changed methods in important ways that reduce the likelihood of detecting the effects of ocean acidification.

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Fig. 1: Diagram describing the lines of evidence supporting an effect of elevated CO2 on fish behaviour.

Data availability

Water temperature data at 0.6 m for Lizard Island reported in the Supplementary Information were obtained from the publicly available database maintained by the Australian Institute of Marine Science (AIMS) at http:weather.aims.gov.au/#/station1166. Additional materials are available at https://doi.org/10.25903/7rz7-4640.

Code availability

No custom code was used in extracting or using the water temperature data from the AIMS database.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies, James Cook University, Townsville, Queensland, Australia

    Philip L. Munday, Megan J. Welch, Geoffrey P. Jones, Mark I. McCormick & Sue-Ann Watson

  2. School of Marine Science and Policy, University of Delaware, Lewes, DE, USA

    Danielle L. Dixson

  3. Department of Biology, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada

    Douglas P. Chivers

  4. Istituto per lo studio degli impatti Antropici e Sostenibilità in ambiente marino, Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, IAS-CNR, Oristano, Italy

    Paolo Domenici

  5. Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science, University of Miami, Miami, FL, USA

    Martin Grosell & Rachael M. Heuer

  6. College of Science and Engineering, James Cook University, Townsville, Queensland, Australia

    Geoffrey P. Jones

  7. Australian Institute of Marine Science, IOMRC, Crawley, Western Australia, Australia

    Mark Meekan

  8. Section for Physiology and Cell Biology, Department of Biosciences, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway

    Göran E. Nilsson

  9. Marine Climate Change Unit, Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Graduate University, Okinawa, Japan

    Timothy Ravasi

  10. Biodiversity and Geosciences Program, Museum of Tropical Queensland, Queensland Museum, Townsville, Queensland, Australia

    Sue-Ann Watson

Authors
  1. Philip L. Munday
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  2. Danielle L. Dixson
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  3. Megan J. Welch
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  5. Paolo Domenici
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  7. Rachael M. Heuer
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  9. Mark I. McCormick
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  11. Göran E. Nilsson
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Contributions

P.L.M. wrote the first version with input from D.L.D. and P.D. All authors edited and contributed to the final version.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Philip L. Munday.

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Supplementary information

Supplementary Table 1

| Published studies testing the effects of elevated CO2 on fish behaviour to end of 2019 Studies are scored as showing significant effects (YES) or not (NO). YES/NO indicates that a significant effect of elevated CO2 was detected for one or more behaviour(s), but not one or more other behaviour(s), or that significant effects of elevated CO2 on a behaviour were absent when another ecological factor (e.g. predation risk, habitat type, parental or developmental effects, diel CO2 cycles) was cross-factored with elevated CO2. The study number matches reference numbers (in parentheses) in Figure 1. Highlighted section indicates papers by authors of Clark et al. 2020.

Supplementary Information

This file contains Supplementary information about the experimental control of elevated CO2, including minimum, maximum and within-day range of pCO2 (µatm) in the experiments conducted by Clark et al. 2020 at Lizard Island Research Station in 2016; and Supplementary Table 2: Inadequate control of elevated CO2 treatments in Clark et al. 2020.

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Munday, P.L., Dixson, D.L., Welch, M.J. et al. Methods matter in repeating ocean acidification studies. Nature 586, E20–E24 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-020-2803-x

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