Evaluation for the effects of increased atmospheric CO2 on marine calcifiers

大气CO2浓度的增加将导致海水pH值和碳酸钙饱和度的降低，并导致海水酸化。最近的研究表明，海洋酸化导致包括海胆和双壳类在内的海洋钙化生物的畸形贝壳和骨针。然而，这些影响的机制仍不清楚。在本研究中，我们评估了骨骼发育相关基因的表达海胆幼虫培养在不同的pH值条件下。结果表明，与Ca ~（2+）转运相关基因的表达量随pH值的降低而降低。这一结果首次从分子生物学水平证明了海洋酸化可以影响海洋生物的钙化过程。

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.