A multi-species coccolith volume response to an anthropogenically-modified ocean

Abstract

Major questions surround the species-specific nature of coccolithophore calcification in response to rising atmospheric CO2 levels. Here we present CaCO3 particle volume distribution data from the coccolith size-fraction of a rapidly accumulating North Atlantic sediment core. These data appear to indicate that coccoliths produced by the larger coccolithophore species present at this location increase in mass in parallel with anthropogenic CO2 release. This finding has significant implications for the realistic representation of an assemblage-wide coccolithophore CO2-calcification response in numerical models.