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What is the title of the paper? Long term responses of North Atlantic calcifying plankton to climate change Who wrote the paper and where is it published? Gregory Beaugrand, Abigail McQuatters – Gollop, Martin Edwards and Eric Goberville. Nature Climate Change Letters online 2 Dec 2012. Citation: Beaugrand, G., McQuatters-Gollop, A., Edwards, M. and Goberville, E., 2012. Long-term changes in North Atlantic calcifying plankton and climate. Nature Climate Change Letters, online. What is this about? The paper examines whether an increase in atmospheric CO2 alone will have a detrimental effect marine organisms or whether other environmental effects such as temperature will play an important role. Why is it important? Ocean acidification is currently a ‘hot topic’ with a lot of worldwide research being carried out on its projected effects. There is much debate in the scientific community about the long term effects an increase in ocean acidification will cause, from loss of habitat (coral reefs ) to individual species (calcifying organisms). Why does it matter? The long term effects of ocean acidification are not fully understood but could have the potential to alter marine habitats, species and therefore the marine food chain and ecosystem. Some organisms may even benefit from an increase in CO2 What does the paper tell us? An increase in global CO2 has the potential to threaten marine biodiversity in two ways. 1. CO2 and greenhouse gases accumulate in the atmosphere to cause global warming 2. CO2 will alter the chemistry of the sea water making in more acidic. Calcifying organisms (organisms that use calcium carbonate to make their shells or body structures) are potentially at great risk from an increase in ocean acidification Many previous studies on ocean acidification have been based on laboratory observations This paper examines abundance and distribution data from the CPR survey for formainfers, coccolithophores, echinoderms and molluscs (all calcifying organisms) The conclusions are: 1. Molluscs (planktonic snails) are declining in overall abundance and moving further north 2. Echinoderm larvae (starfish larvae) have increase in abundance and their geographical range in the North sea 3. Foramiinfers and coccolithophores increased in abundance and their geographical range The results from statistical analyses revealed that Changes in foraminifers, coccolithophores and echinoderms was positively correlated by temperature Changes in molluscs was positively correlated to changes in pH The overall conclusion was that temperature (annual sea surface temperature) has more of a direct effect on the distribution and abundance of calcifying organisms than pH.