Coral Reef Calcification in a Changing Ocean: from Microscale Mechanisms to Macroscale Responses

Coral reefs are among the most biologically diverse and economically important ecosystems on the planet. However, anthropogenic CO2 emissions are driving unprecedented changes in the tropical oceans, where the vast majority of shallow water reefs exist. Rapid warming, acidification and declining productivity will have potentially deleterious effects on calcification, the fundamental process of reef building. However, quantitative projections of coral reef futures are limited, in part, by gaps in our understanding of the calcification process – from the production of crystals to the building of reefs – and of the response of coral and coral reef calcification to multiple, interactive global change stressors on timescales of days to decades.

This topic invites contributions from biologists, marine chemists, physical oceanographers, ecologists and geochemists to bring diverse expertise and new perspectives to a subject of global significance. We encourage submissions from field, laboratory, and theoretical studies that offer new insights into the fundamental mechanisms of calcification in corals and coral-reef-associated organisms, the processes of reef accretion and dissolution, and the response of calcification to global change at the cellular, colony and ecosystem scale. Paleo perspectives on calcification responses to past global changes are encouraged as well as papers that offer insights into potential for adaptation.