Combined, short-term exposure to reduced seawater pH and elevated temperature induces community shifts in an intertidal meiobenthic assemblage.

In future global change scenarios the surface ocean will experience continuous acidification and rising temperatures. While effects of both stressors on marine, benthic communities are fairly well studied, consequences of the interaction of both factors remain largely unknown. We performed a short-term microcosm experiment exposing a soft-bottom community from an intertidal flat in the Westerscheldt estuary to two levels of seawater pH (ambient pH = 7.