Air pollution may be present in the atmosphere but its effects are resonating even in the deepest part of the bodies of water around the world. Researchers have found out that high carbon dioxide produces more acid in seawater and this leads to a major change in a marine process called nitrogen fixation.
According to a group of researchers hailed from the trifecta of Florida State University, Xiamen University in China and Princeton University, high carbon dioxide level produces more acid in seawater, which in turn affects largely cyanobacteria. These very minute cells are responsible for nitrogen fixation that helps different marine species.
A cyanobacterium, known as Trichodesmium, a nitrogen-fixing bacterium according to Microbewiki, is a victim of the phenomenal warming of the Earth, with its percentage has been constantly declining as high carbon dioxide level produces more acid in seawater. In the nitrogen fixation process, the cell plays a big role as it is responsible for producing ammonia converted from nitrogen gas. A huge portion of marine organisms largely depends on ammonia in order to survive under the sea.
As what Sven Kranz, an expert from the Florida State University, has said in the Phys.Org, these cyanobacteria is the number one provider of nitrogen for marine species in the open oceans but as it gives a negative reaction to climate change, it may also largely impact our food web. The bad news is, as high carbon dioxide level produces more acid in seawater, Trichodesmium is no way can counteract the negative effects of increasingly warming of the Earth.
Kranz has been putting this issue on his radar and has started studying the effects of the carbon dioxide to cyanobacteria. But this time, he focused largely on collections of data about how this cell reacted to the high carbon dioxide level that produces more acid in seawater.
Tags: High Carbon Dioxide Level, Carbon Dioxide, Carbon Dioxide Level, Acid, Seawater. Marine Process, Cyanobacteria, Climate Change, Florida State University, Xiamen University in China, Princeton University, Ocean, Sea
