A mesocosm concept for the simulation of near-natural shallow underwater climates: The Kiel Outdoor Benthocosms (KOB).

Wahl, Martin , Buchholz, Björn, Winde, V., Golomb, D., Guy-Haim, Tamar , Müller, J., Rilov, G., Scotti, Marco and Boettcher, M. (2015) A mesocosm concept for the simulation of near-natural shallow underwater climates: The Kiel Outdoor Benthocosms (KOB). Limnology and Oceanography: Methods, 13 (11). pp. 651-663. DOI 10.1002/lom3.10055.

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Abstract

Biogenic, seasonal, and stochastic fluctuations at various scales characterize coastal marine habitats and modulate environmental stress. The relevance of most past studies into climate change impacts is weakened by the usually intentional exclusion of fluctuations from the experimental design. We describe a new outdoor mesocosm system for benthic research (“benthocosms”) which permit the control and manipulation of several environmental variables while admitting all natural in situ fluctuations. This is achieved by continuously measuring the relevant variables (e.g., temperature, pH, O2, CO2) in situ, defining these in real time as reference values in the control software and simulating target climates by delta treatments. The latter constitute the manipulative addition of predefined changes (e.g., “warming”, “acidification”) to the reference values. We illustrate the performance of the system by presenting the environmental data of four seasonal experiments which together represent an entire year. The “Kiel Outdoor Benthocosms” allow realizing near-natural climate change experiments on complex benthic communities under controlled scenarios.

Document Type: Article
Additional Information: WOS:000367227000006
Keywords: OCEAN ACIDIFICATION; SYSTEM; PH; MACROALGAE; HABITATS; MARINE; OXYGEN; GAS
Research affiliation: Kiel University
OceanRep > GEOMAR > FB3 Marine Ecology > FB3-EOE-N Experimental Ecology - Food Webs
OceanRep > The Future Ocean - Cluster of Excellence > FO-R08
OceanRep > The Future Ocean - Cluster of Excellence
OceanRep > GEOMAR > FB3 Marine Ecology > FB3-EOE-B Experimental Ecology - Benthic Ecology
Refereed: Yes
Open Access Journal?: No
Publisher: American Society of Limnology and Oceanography
Projects: BIOACID, BaltMed, Future Ocean
Date Deposited: 25 Jun 2015 07:09
Last Modified: 23 Sep 2019 21:44
URI: https://oceanrep.geomar.de/id/eprint/29041

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