# Effect of Ocean Acidification on Iron Availability to Marine Phytoplankton

Entry by Angelo Mao, AP 225, Fall 2010

Title: Effect of Ocean Acidification on Iron Availability to Marine Phytoplankton

Authors: Dalin Shi, Yan Xu, Brian M. Hopkinson, François M. M. Morel

Journal: Science

Volume: Vol 327

Pages: 676-679

## Summary

Increased concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere lowers the ocean pH, which may have effects on phytoplankton species that form the basis of food chains in the ocean. The researchers determined that lower pH lowers iron uptake by phytoplankton. They determined that pH does not alter phytoplankton food uptake, and that it is the effect of acidification on the acid-base chemistry of release of iron from chelators that leads to lower iron uptake by phytoplankton species.

soft matter keywords: colloid, solubility, pH

## Fe' concentration predicts uptake

Figure 1. Steady-state iron uptake in different species of phytoplankton. A, B, D, and E depict iron uptake as a function of total iron concentration at different pH. C and F depict iron uptake as a function of unchelated iron concentration, Fe'.

The researchers quantified uptake of iron in four different species of phytoplankton, "the coastal centric diatom Thalassiosira weissflogii, the open ocean–centric diatom Thalassiosira oceanica, the pennate diatom Phaeodactylum tricornutum, and the coccolithophore Emiliana huxley." Figure 1 shows an extreme case in which there is only one chelating agent at work, the tetracarboxylic acid EDTA. Although the uptake as a function of total iron concentration varied greatly with pH, the relations coalesced to one line when only unchelated iron was considered. The concentration of unchelated iron could be calculated by:

$Fe' = \sum_x [Fe(OH)_x^{(3-x)+}]$

## Fe update does not depend on physiological response to pH

Figure 2. Uptake of iron by the species T. weissflogii from iron present in different forms: "(A) the aminocarboxylate EDTA, (B) the biscatecholate siderophore azotochelin, and (C) the trihydroxamate siderophore desferriferrioxamine B, and from iron in the forms of (D) freshly precipitated ferrihydrite and (E) ferrihydrite sequestered in the iron storage protein."

Although Figure 1 had demonstrated that unchelated concentrated correlated with iron uptake in phytoplankton, it was unclear whether this difference was due to the effect of pH on physiological processes, or the effect of pH on iron availability. The researchers chose forms of iron chelation that depended on pH to varying degrees. Figure 2A, for example, had iron chelated by EDTA, whose release of iron was strongly influenced by proton concentration:

$Fe(OH)_{0.6}Y + Ca^{2+} + 2.3H_2O = Fe(OH)_{2.9} + CaY + 2.3 H^+$

Increased pH would disfavor dissociation. On the other hand, figure 2B shows uptake when iron has been bound to bis-catecholate azotochelin:

$FeY + 2.9 H_2O = Fe(OH)_3 + H_{2.8}Y + 0.1 H^+$

The dissociation is not influenced greatly by pH. Figure 2B shows that uptake remains constant despite pH change, demonstrating that pH does not affect phytoplankton ability to uptake iron.

## Fe concentration affects growth rate

Figure 3 translates the effects of iron uptake to growth rate as a function of cellular iron concentration. Figure 3D underscores that different growth rates are not a result of pH, but of iron availability.