Evaluation for the effects of increased atmospheric CO2 on marine calcifiers

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Increasing atmospheric CO2 is predicted to decrease the seawater pH and calcium carbonate saturation state and acidify the oceanic seawater. Recent studies revealed that ocean acidification cause malformed shells and spicules on marine calcifiers including sea urchins and bivalves. However, the mechanism of these effects is still unclear. In this present study, we evaluated the expression of skeletogenesis related genes on sea urchins larvae cultured under different pH conditions. As a result we cleared that the expression of the gene known to be related on Ca2+ transportation decreased with pH decrease. There results first demonstrated that ocean acidification can affect the calcification process of marine organisms at a molecular biological level.