72 research outputs found

    Anomalies in the carbonate system of Red Sea coastal habitats

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    Ā© The Author(s), 2020. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in Baldry, K., Saderne, V., McCorkle, D. C., Churchill, J. H., Agust, S., & Duarte, C. M. Anomalies in the carbonate system of Red Sea coastal habitats. Biogeosciences, 17(2), (2020): 423-439, doi:10.5194/bg-17-423-2020.We use observations of dissolved inorganic carbon (DIC) and total alkalinity (TA) to assess the impact of ecosystem metabolic processes on coastal waters of the eastern Red Sea. A simple, single-end-member mixing model is used to account for the influence of mixing with offshore waters and evaporationā€“precipitation and to model ecosystem-driven perturbations on the carbonate system chemistry of coral reefs, seagrass meadows and mangrove forests. We find that (1) along-shelf changes in TA and DIC exhibit strong linear relationships that are consistent with basin-scale net calcium carbonate precipitation; (2) ecosystem-driven changes in TA and DIC are larger than offshore variations in >70ā€‰% of sampled seagrass meadows and mangrove forests, changes which are influenced by a combination of longer water residence times and community metabolic rates; and (3) the sampled mangrove forests show strong and consistent contributions from both organic respiration and other sedimentary processes (carbonate dissolution and secondary redox processes), while seagrass meadows display more variability in the relative contributions of photosynthesis and other sedimentary processes (carbonate precipitation and oxidative processes). The results of this study highlight the importance of resolving the influences of water residence times, mixing and upstream habitats on mediating the carbonate system and coastal airā€“sea carbon dioxide fluxes over coastal habitats in the Red Sea.This research has been supported by the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) (grant nos. BAS/1/1071-01-01 and BAS/1/1072-01-01) and the Investment in Science fund at WHOI

    Object-Centered Engineering: A Methodology for Virtual Engineering

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    In the product realization process, it is not currently possible to go from business case models to the final production system in the virtual design space. Virtual engineering aims to address this problem. Virtual engineering techniques will allow users to track the production of a product or system from birth to death, from the complete business case model to the customerā€™s feedback on the first production run. To implement a framework that will handle the broad range of information that is necessary to track a product through its complete life cycle, an object-centered approach involving virtual objects is required. These virtual objects will represent the physical objects as they exist in the ā€œreal world.ā€ To enable these objects to have extensible qualities similar to objectoriented principles, similar techniques to those used by object-oriented design will be employed. Some of these techniques include multi-representational models, hierarchy, inheritance, and dynamic access. One important justification for an object-centered approach is that it gives stakeholders and engineers a mechanism for discourse regarding the product or system under design. Giving the engineer and other collaborators a comfortable and familiar mechanism by which to share and discuss ideas is crucial in allowing users to gain understanding about a productā€™s key issues. These ideas and processes are embodied in virtual engineering and the method behind it, which is referred to as objectcentered engineering. These ideas and the object-centered method will be discussed in this paper

    A short-term survival experiment assessing impacts of ocean acidification and hypoxia on the benthic foraminifer Globobulimina turgida

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    Author Posting. Ā© The Author(s), 2016. This is the author's version of the work. It is posted here for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Foraminiferal Research 46 (2016): 25-33, doi:10.2113/gsjfr.46.1.25.The oceans are absorbing increasing amounts of carbon dioxide (CO2) as a result of rising anthropogenic atmospheric CO2 emissions. This increase in oceanic CO2 leads to the lowering of seawater pH, which is known as ocean acidification (OA). Simultaneously, rising global temperatures, also linked to higher atmospheric CO2 concentrations, result in a more stratified surface ocean, reducing exchange between surface and deeper waters, leading to expansion of oxygen-limited zones (hypoxia). Numerous studies have investigated the impact of one or the other of these environmental changes (OA, hypoxia) on a wide variety of marine organisms, but few experimental studies focus on the simultaneous effects of these two stressors. Foraminifera are unicellular eukaryotes (protists) that live in virtually every marine environment and form an important link in the benthic food web. Here we present results of a short-term (3.5 week) study in which both CO2 (OA) and O2 (hypoxia) were manipulated to evaluate the influence of these parameters on the survival of the benthic foraminifer Globobulimina turgida. Elevated CO2 concentrations did not impact short-term survivorship of this species, and furthermore, G. turgida had higher survival percentages under hypoxic conditions (0.7 ml/l) than in well-aerated water, regardless of CO2 concentration.This research was supported by US NSF grant OCE-1219948 to JMB.2017-01-0

    Estimation of Farm-Forward Regional Economic Impacts for the North Plains Groundwater Conservation District in Texas

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    Impacts of alternative agricultural water conservation strategies are being evaluated in the Texas Panhandle. Stakeholders have expressed concern that all effects need to be accounted for including the regional economy. A methodology was developed to evaluate the effects on the backward and forward-linked processing sectors and differentiated results are presented.backward-linked, forward-linked, IMPLAN, Ogallala Aquifer, water policy, Resource /Energy Economics and Policy, Q18, Q32, Q38,

    A culture-based calibration of benthic foraminiferal paleotemperature proxies : Ī“18O and Mg/Ca results

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    Ā© The Authors, 2010. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License. The definitive version was published in Biogeosciences 7 (2010): 1335-1347, doi:10.5194/bg-7-1335-2010Benthic foraminifera were cultured for five months at four temperatures (4, 7, 14 and 21 Ā°C) to establish the temperature dependence of foraminiferal calcite Ī“18O and Mg/Ca. Two Bulimina species (B. aculeata and B. marginata) were most successful in terms of calcification, adding chambers at all four temperatures and reproducing at 7 and 14 Ā°C. Foraminiferal Ī“18O values displayed ontogenetic variations, with lower values in younger individuals. The Ī“18O values of adult specimens decreased with increasing temperature in all but the 4 Ā°C treatment, exhibiting a relationship consistent with previous Ī“18O paleotemperature calibration studies. Foraminiferal Mg/Ca values, determined by laser ablation inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry, were broadly consistent with previous Mg/Ca calibration studies, but extremely high values in the 4 Ā°C treatment and higher than predicted values at two of the other three temperatures make it challenging to interpret these results.Funding was provided by US NSF OCE-0647899 to DCM and JMB, and by the Swedish Research Council (grant no 621-2005-4265), the Lamm Foundation, and the Engkvist Foundation to HLF. A Fulbright fellowship to HLF together with traveling grants from GĀØoteborg University, the Crafoord Foundation, and the Royal Physiographic Society in Lund enabled HLFā€™s Postdoc stay and subsequent visits to WHOI

    Corrigendum to "A culture-based calibration of benthic foraminiferal paleotemperature proxies: Ī“18O and Mg/Ca results" published in Biogeosciences, 7, 1335ā€“1347, 2010

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    Ā© The Author(s), 2011. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License. The definitive version was published in Biogeosciences 8 (2011): 1521, doi:10.5194/bg-8-1521-2011

    Ocean acidification not likely to affect the survival and fitness of two temperate benthic foraminiferal species : results from culture experiments

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    Author Posting. Ā© The Author(s), 2014. This is the author's version of the work. It is posted here by permission of Cushman Foundation for Foraminiferal Research for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Foraminiferal Research 44 (2014): 341-351.Specimens of Bolivina argentea and Bulimina marginata, two widely distributed temperate benthic foraminiferal species, were cultured at constant temperature and controlled pCO2 (ambient, 1000 ppmv, and 2000 ppmv) for six weeks to assess the effect of elevated atmospheric CO2 concentrations on survival and fitness using Adenosine Triphosphate (ATP) analyses and on shell microfabric using high-resolution SEM and image analysis. To characterize the carbonate chemistry of the incubation seawater, total alkalinity and dissolved inorganic carbon were measured approximately every two weeks. Survival and fitness were not directly affected by elevated pCO2 and the concomitant decrease in seawater pH and calcite saturation states (Ī©c), even when seawater was undersaturated with respect to calcite. These results differ from some previous observations that ocean acidification can cause a variety of effects on benthic foraminifera, including test dissolution, decreased growth, and mottling (loss of symbiont color in symbiont-bearing species), suggesting that the benthic foraminiferal response to ocean acidification may be species specific. If so, this implies that ocean acidification may lead to ecological winners and losers even within the same taxonomic group.This research was supported by NSF grants OCE-0647899 to DCM and JMB, OCE-0725966 to JMB and DCM, and OA-1219948 to JMB.2015-10-0

    Early exposure of bay scallops (Argopecten irradians) to high CO2 causes a decrease in larval shell growth

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    Ā© The Author(s), 2013. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in PLoS ONE 8 (2013): e61065, doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0061065.Ocean acidification, characterized by elevated pCO2 and the associated decreases in seawater pH and calcium carbonate saturation state (Ī©), has a variable impact on the growth and survival of marine invertebrates. Larval stages are thought to be particularly vulnerable to environmental stressors, and negative impacts of ocean acidification have been seen on fertilization as well as on embryonic, larval, and juvenile development and growth of bivalve molluscs. We investigated the effects of high CO2 exposure (resulting in pH = 7.39, Ī©ar = 0.74) on the larvae of the bay scallop Argopecten irradians from 12 h to 7 d old, including a switch from high CO2 to ambient CO2 conditions (pH = 7.93, Ī©ar = 2.26) after 3 d, to assess the possibility of persistent effects of early exposure. The survival of larvae in the high CO2 treatment was consistently lower than the survival of larvae in ambient conditions, and was already significantly lower at 1 d. Likewise, the shell length of larvae in the high CO2 treatment was significantly smaller than larvae in the ambient conditions throughout the experiment and by 7 d, was reduced by 11.5%. This study also demonstrates that the size effects of short-term exposure to high CO2 are still detectable after 7 d of larval development; the shells of larvae exposed to high CO2 for the first 3 d of development and subsequently exposed to ambient CO2 were not significantly different in size at 3 and 7 d than the shells of larvae exposed to high CO2 throughout the experiment.This work was funded by a Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Interdisciplinary Award to Mullineaux & McCorkle; and awards to Mullineaux & White, to McCorkle, and to Cohen & McCorkle through NOAA (National Oceanic and Admosphereic Administration) Sea Grant #NA10OAR4170083. White was funded through a National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate Fellowship through the American Society for Engineering Education

    Impacts of multiple stressors on a benthic foraminiferal community: a long-term experiment assessing response to ocean acidification, hypoxia and warming

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    Ā© The Author(s), 2021. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in Bernhard, J. M., Wit, J. C., Starczak, V. R., Beaudoin, D. J., Phalen, W. G., & McCorkle, D. C. Impacts of multiple stressors on a benthic foraminiferal community: a long-term experiment assessing response to ocean acidification, hypoxia and warming. Frontiers in Marine Science, 8, (2021): 643339, https://doi.org/10.3389/fmars.2021.643339.Ocean chemistry is changing as a result of human activities. Atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) concentrations are increasing, causing an increase in oceanic pCO2 that drives a decrease in oceanic pH, a process called ocean acidification (OA). Higher CO2 concentrations are also linked to rising global temperatures that can result in more stratified surface waters, reducing the exchange between surface and deep waters; this stronger stratification, along with nutrient pollution, contributes to an expansion of oxygen-depleted zones (so called hypoxia or deoxygenation). Determining the response of marine organisms to environmental changes is important for assessments of future ecosystem functioning. While many studies have assessed the impact of individual or paired stressors, fewer studies have assessed the combined impact of pCO2, O2, and temperature. A long-term experiment (āˆ¼10 months) with different treatments of these three stressors was conducted to determine their sole or combined impact on the abundance and survival of a benthic foraminiferal community collected from a continental-shelf site. Foraminifera are well suited to such study because of their small size, relatively rapid growth, varied mineralogies and physiologies. Inoculation materials were collected from a āˆ¼77-m deep site south of Woods Hole, MA. Very fine sediments (<53 Ī¼m) were used as inoculum, to allow the entire community to respond. Thirty-eight morphologically identified taxa grew during the experiment. Multivariate statistical analysis indicates that hypoxia was the major driving factor distinguishing the yields, while warming was secondary. Species responses were not consistent, with different species being most abundant in different treatments. Some taxa grew in all of the triple-stressor samples. Results from the experiment suggest that foraminiferal speciesā€™ responses will vary considerably, with some being negatively impacted by predicted environmental changes, while other taxa will tolerate, and perhaps even benefit, from deoxygenation, warming and OA.This work was supported by the US NSF SEES-OA grant OCE-1219948 to JB and the Investment in Science Program at WHOI. DM also received support from the NSF Independent Research and Development Program
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