Western CEDAR

Title

Technical Note: A Minimally-invasive Experimental System for pCO2 Manipulation in Plankton Cultures using Passive Gas Exchange (Atmospheric Carbon Control Simulator)

Authors

Brooke Love, Western Washington UniversityFollow
M. Brady (Michael Brady) Olson, Shannon Point Marine Center
Tristen Wuori, Shannon Point Marine Center

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

5-29-2017

Abstract

As research into the biotic effects of ocean acidification has increased, the methods for simulating these environmental changes in the laboratory have multiplied. Here we describe the atmospheric carbon control simulator (ACCS) for the maintenance of plankton under controlled pCO2 conditions, designed for species sensitive to the physical disturbance introduced by the bubbling of cultures and for studies involving trophic interaction. The system consists of gas mixing and equilibration components coupled with large volume atmospheric simulation chambers. These chambers allow gas exchange to counteract the changes in carbonate chemistry induced by the metabolic activity of the organisms. The system is relatively low cost, very flexible, and when used in conjunction with semi-continuous culture methods, it increases the density of organisms kept under realistic condions, increases the allowable time interval between dilutions, and/or decreases the metabolically driven change in carbonate chemistry during these intervals. It accommodates a large number of culture vessels, which facilitate multi-trophic level studies and allow the tracking of variable responses within and across plankton populations to ocean acidification. It also includes components that increase the reliability of gas mixing systems using mass flow controllers.

Publication Title

Biogeosciences

Volume

14

First Page

2675

Last Page

2684

DOI

https://doi.org/doi:10.5194/bg-14-2675-2017

Required Publisher's Statement

Published by Copernicus Publications on behalf of the European Geosciences Union.

doi:10.5194/bg-14-2675-2017

Recommended Citation

Love, Brooke; Olson, M. Brady (Michael Brady); and Wuori, Tristen, "Technical Note: A Minimally-invasive Experimental System for pCO2 Manipulation in Plankton Cultures using Passive Gas Exchange (Atmospheric Carbon Control Simulator)" (2017). Environmental Sciences Faculty and Staff Publications. 43.
https://cedar.wwu.edu/esci_facpubs/43

Subjects - Topical (LCSH)

Plankton culture; Ocean acidification; Ecology--Experiments

Genre/Form

articles

Type

Text

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

Language

English

Format

application/pdf