Title:

A Look Into Ocean Acidification Effects On Mussels

Ocean acidification is the ongoing decrease of pH in our world's oceans mainly caused by the intake of CO2 from the atmosphere. The purpose of this project is to examine how different pH values in seawater can affect the growth of mussels (Mytilus Edulis). The saturation state of calcium carbonate is a value called omega. For example, if omega is less than 1 then seawater conditions are corrosive or undersaturated, meaning the mussels have less calcium carbonate to build their shells. It is also well known that if omega is over 1.5 this can cause an impairment to the growth of calcifiers. The issue at hand is as ocean water becomes more acidic how will this affect ocean communities of calcifiers, and ultimately could this cause a change in ocean communities?

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