AUTHOR=van der Merwe Riaan , Röthig Till , Voolstra Christian R. , Ochsenkühn Michael A. , Lattemann Sabine , Amy Gary L. TITLE=High salinity tolerance of the Red Sea coral Fungia granulosa under desalination concentrate discharge conditions: an in situ photophysiology experiment JOURNAL=Frontiers in Marine Science VOLUME=1 YEAR=2014 URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/marine-science/articles/10.3389/fmars.2014.00058 DOI=10.3389/fmars.2014.00058 ISSN=2296-7745 ABSTRACT=
Seawater reverse osmosis desalination concentrate may have chronic and/or acute impacts on the marine ecosystems in the near-field area of the discharge. Environmental impact of the desalination plant discharge is supposedly site- and volumetric- specific, and also depends on the salinity tolerance of the organisms inhabiting the water column in and around a discharge environment. Scientific studies that aim to understand possible impacts of elevated salinity levels are important to assess detrimental effects to organisms, especially for species with no mechanism of osmoregulation, e.g., presumably corals. Previous studies on corals indicate sensitivity toward hypo- and hyper-saline environments with small changes in salinity already affecting coral physiology. In order to evaluate sensitivity of Red Sea corals to increased salinity levels, we conducted a long-term (29 days)