Abstract

As a consequence of ocean acidification, deep dwelling corals are the first affected by aragonite undersaturation. To study the fate of deep-sea corals in changing oceans the cosmopolitical scleractinian Desmophyllum dianthus (Esper, 1794) was studied, since it typically occurs down to depths of 2,500 m but also in shallow waters of the Chilean fjord region up to 8 m. With more than 1,500 specimens per m² and a total length of up to 40 cm it is an important ecosystem engineer (Försterra & Häussermann, 2003), but still little is known about its in situ growth rates and adaptability towards a changed pH. Therefore, our study has the following aims: (1) Provide growth rate data via an in situ long-term experiment (one year) for D. dianthus using the buoyant-weight technique. (2) Identify the adaptability of D. dianthus towards a changing pH via a crosstransplantation experiment at two study sites (Comau Fjord center & mouth)