Diel and tidal pCO × O fluctuations provide physiological refuge to early life stages of a coastal forage fish.

Coastal ecosystems experience substantial natural fluctuations in pCO and dissolved oxygen (DO) conditions on diel, tidal, seasonal and interannual timescales. Rising carbon dioxide emissions and anthropogenic nutrient input are expected to increase these pCO and DO cycles in severity and duration of acidification and hypoxia. How coastal marine organisms respond to natural pCO × DO variability and future climate change remains largely unknown.

Thicker Shells Compensate Extensive Dissolution in Brachiopods under Future Ocean Acidification.

Organisms with long generation times require phenotypic plasticity to survive in changing environments until genetic adaptation can be achieved. Marine calcifiers are particularly vulnerable to ocean acidification due to dissolution and a reduction in shell-building carbonate ions. Long-term experiments assess organisms' abilities to acclimatize or even adapt to environmental change.

Robust quantification of fish early life CO sensitivities via serial experimentation.

Despite the remarkable expansion of laboratory studies, robust estimates of single species CO sensitivities remain largely elusive. We conducted a meta-analysis of 20 CO exposure experiments conducted over 6 years on offspring of wild Atlantic silversides () to robustly constrain CO effects on early life survival and growth. We conclude that early stages of this species are generally tolerant to CO levels of approximately 2000 µatm, likely because they already experience these conditions on diel to seasonal timescales.

A 120-year record of resilience to environmental change in brachiopods.

The inability of organisms to cope in changing environments poses a major threat to their survival. Rising carbon dioxide concentrations, recently exceeding 400 μatm, are rapidly warming and acidifying our oceans. Current understanding of organism responses to this environmental phenomenon is based mainly on relatively short- to medium-term laboratory and field experiments, which cannot evaluate the potential for long-term acclimation and adaptation, the processes identified as most important to confer resistance.