Future4Oceans · Window to the future: Understanding and assessing the vulnerability of marine biodiversity to ocean acidification

Window to the future: Understanding and assessing the vulnerability of marine biodiversity to ocean acidification

Future4Ocean (Understanding and assessing the vulnerability of marine biodiversity to ocean acidification), was funded by a H2020-MSCA Global Fellowship under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (GA No. 702628), focused on the effects of ocean acidification (OA) to the diversity and function of marine ecosystems, as well as the services they provide to society. Examples of ecosystem services and ocean-related human activities that are predicted to be negatively impacted are: earth-system regulating processes; ocean carbon uptake; coastal protection; fisheries for food provision and livelihoods; aquaculture; tourism and cultural services; and human health and security. Most of the experiments to date on OA have consisted of short- to medium- timescale laboratory studies of single species exposed in isolation to OA. Consequently, our understanding and ability to predict the impacts of OA at the community and ecosystem levels are extremely limited. In order to address this research gap, Future4Oceans fellowship integrated four aims: 1) identifying emergent effects of OA on coastal marine ecosystems and their functioning; 2) assessing the effects of OA in the context of multiple-stressors; 3) defining the role of acclimation/adaptation in determining responses to OA; and 4) communicating OA impacts to the public and policy makers with virtual reality. These natural CO2 vents provide a powerful field system to test the speed and extent of coral acclimation and adaptation to OA. To achieve these objectives, the MSCA Fellowship Future4Oceans created a multi-disciplinary consortium with the participation of top scientists from European and USA institutions with skills in marine ecology, genomics, biogeochemistry, knowledge communication. The conclusions of Future4Oceans are: 1) The use of functional traits provided critical insights into the emergent ecological consequences of OA for marine communities and link changes in structure to potential effects on ecological function. This is critical to better comprehend the generalities of the vulnerability of marine benthic communities under ongoing and predicted global environmental changes. 2) Under local adaptation, native genotypes will have higher fitness than any other foreign genotypes in the considered environment. Based on that, our results suggest that acidified genotypes better cope with OA through phenotypic plasticity or local adaptation. 3) Virtual Reality films are of high impact, quality, and innovative platform for communication and outreach purposes.

Data: CORDIS, © European Union