A Novel μCT Analysis Reveals Different Responses of Bioerosion and Secondary Accretion to Environmental Variability

PLoS One. 2016 Apr 13;11(4):e0153058. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0153058. eCollection 2016.

Abstract

Corals build reefs through accretion of calcium carbonate (CaCO3) skeletons, but net reef growth also depends on bioerosion by grazers and borers and on secondary calcification by crustose coralline algae and other calcifying invertebrates. However, traditional field methods for quantifying secondary accretion and bioerosion confound both processes, do not measure them on the same time-scale, or are restricted to 2D methods. In a prior study, we compared multiple environmental drivers of net erosion using pre- and post-deployment micro-computed tomography scans (μCT; calculated as the % change in volume of experimental CaCO3 blocks) and found a shift from net accretion to net erosion with increasing ocean acidity. Here, we present a novel μCT method and detail a procedure that aligns and digitally subtracts pre- and post-deployment μCT scans and measures the simultaneous response of secondary accretion and bioerosion on blocks exposed to the same environmental variation over the same time-scale. We tested our method on a dataset from a prior study and show that it can be used to uncover information previously unattainable using traditional methods. We demonstrated that secondary accretion and bioerosion are driven by different environmental parameters, bioerosion is more sensitive to ocean acidity than secondary accretion, and net erosion is driven more by changes in bioerosion than secondary accretion.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
  • Research Support, U.S. Gov't, Non-P.H.S.

MeSH terms

  • Animals
  • Anthozoa / growth & development*
  • Calcification, Physiologic / physiology
  • Calcium Carbonate
  • Coral Reefs*
  • Models, Theoretical
  • Seawater
  • X-Ray Microtomography*

Substances

  • Calcium Carbonate

Grants and funding

Funding for this project came from NOAA Office of National Marine Sanctuaries-HIMB partnership (MOA #2009-039/7932), National Science Foundation EPSCoR Hawai’i, NOAA Dr. Nancy Foster Scholarship to N.J.S., Sigma-Xi GIAR to N.J.S., and by Hawai’i Sea Grants #1889 to F.I.M.T and #1847 to M.J.D. and F.I.M.T. This paper is funded in part by a grant/cooperative agreement from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Project No. R/IR-18, which is sponsored by the University of Hawai’i Sea Grant College Program, School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology, under Institutional Grant No. NA09OAR4170060 Office of Sea Grant, Department of Commerce. The views expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of NOAA or any of its subagencies. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.