Mesocosm Facility for Ocean Acidification Impact Study of Xiamen University (FOANIC-XMU)

Mesocosm Facility for Ocean Acidification Impact Study of Xiamen University (FOANIC-XMU)

Published 24 June 2013 Science Leave a Comment

The Mesocosm Facility for Ocean Acidification Impact Study of State Key Laboratory of Marine Environmental Science (MEL, Xiamen University)(FOANIC-XMU) has been successfully set up in Wuyuan Bay (N24°31′48″, E118°10′47″). The floating platform, the dimension size is 35×7m, has 9 mesocosms with volume of 4 cubic meters and is fully solar-powered for uses of instruments, with 3 independent rooms (9 m² each).  Activities on the platform are monitored and recorded continuously. Different levels of CO₂ in the mesocosms can be achieved by the commercially available CO₂-enriching device (CO₂ enrichlor, Ruihua, Wuhan, China).

Ocean acidification (OA) conditions can be induced gradually with aeration from the CO₂ enrichlors.  Effects of OA on phytoplankton species competition, primary productivity, food chain effect and microbial processes will be examined by MEL group and their collaborating scientists from overseas to look into the species/community/ecosystem-level impacts. This facility is open to other scientific communities or individual scientists.  Contact should be directed to Kunshan Gao (ksgao(at)xmu.edu.cn) or Yaping Wu (yapingwu(at)xmu.edu.cn).