Long-term responses of North Atlantic calcifying plankton to climate change

The global increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration is potentially threatening marine biodiversity in two ways. First, carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases accumulating in the atmosphere are causing global warming(1). Second, carbon dioxide is altering sea water chemistry, making the ocean more acidic(2). Although temperature has a cardinal influence on all biological processes from the molecular to the ecosystem level(3), acidification might impair the process of calcification or exacerbate dissolution of calcifying organisms(4). Here, we show however that North Atlantic calcifying plankton primarily responded to climate-induced changes in temperatures during the period 1960-2009, overriding the signal from the effects of ocean acidification. We provide evidence that foraminifers, coccolithophores, both pteropod and non-pteropod molluscs and echinoderms exhibited an abrupt shift circa 1996 at a time of a substantial increase in temperature(5) and that some taxa exhibited a poleward movement in agreement with expected biogeographical changes under sea temperature warming(6,7). Although acidification may become a serious threat to marine calcifying organisms, our results suggest that over the study period the primary driver of North Atlantic calcifying plankton was oceanic temperature.