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Around one third of all anthropogenic CO2 emissions have been absorbed by the oceans, causing changes in seawater pH and carbonate chemistry. These changes have the potential to affect phytoplankton, which are critically important for marine food webs and the global carbon cycle. However, our current knowledge of how phytoplankton will respond to these changes is limited to a few laboratory and mesocosm experiments. Long-term experiments are needed to determine the vulnerability of phytoplankton to enhanced pCO2. Maintaining phytoplankton cultures in exponential growth for extended periods of time is logistically difficult and labour intensive. Here we describe a continuous culture system that greatly reduces the time required to maintain phytoplankton cultures, and minimises variation in experimental pCO2 treatments over time. This system is simple, relatively cheap, flexible, and allows long-term experiments to be performed to further our understanding of chronic responses and adaptation by phytoplankton species to future ocean acidification. © 2014 by the authors.

Item Type:	Refereed Article
Keywords:	Phytoplankton Culture System, Ocean Acidification, carbonate chemistry
Research Division:	Earth Sciences
Research Group:	Oceanography
Research Field:	Biological oceanography
Objective Division:	Environmental Management
Objective Group:	Management of Antarctic and Southern Ocean environments
Objective Field:	Antarctic and Southern Ocean oceanic processes
UTAS Author:	Wynn-Edwards, C (Dr Cathryn Wynn-Edwards)
UTAS Author:	Kawaguchi, S (Dr So Kawaguchi)
UTAS Author:	Davidson, A (Dr Andrew Davidson)
UTAS Author:	Wright, SW (Dr Simon Wright)
UTAS Author:	Nichols, PD (Dr Peter Nichols)
UTAS Author:	Virtue, P (Associate Professor Patti Virtue)
ID Code:	94445
Year Published:	2014
Web of Science® Times Cited:	2
Deposited By:	CRC-Antarctic Climate & Ecosystems
Deposited On:	2014-09-09
Last Modified:	2017-11-01
Downloads:	346 View Download Statistics