Best practices

Focal points: Ms Kristy Kroeker, University of California Santa Cruz, USA Mr Richard Matear, CSIRO Marine and Atmospheric Research, Australia

NEW! Addendum to the Guide to Best Practices for Ocean Acidification Research and Data Reporting

Aim

Our approach

Guide to Best Practices for Ocean Acidification Research and Data Reporting

With new funding opportunities becoming available for ocean acidification research, many researchers, postdoctoral investigators, and PhD students with no or limited previous experience in ocean acidification research constantly enter the field. The rapidly increasing interest in this field is reflected in the number of papers and authors publishing on ocean acidification over the past few years: 58 authors and 18 papers in 2004; over 1200 authors and 350 papers in 2012; nearly 480 papers in 2014. To ensure comparability of the vast amount of data generated and to achieve the highest possible data quality it is important to develop, test and adopt internationally agreed, standardized protocols for observational and experimental approaches, carbonate chemistry manipulations and measurements, and data reporting.

To initiate this process, the European Project on Ocean Acidification (EPOCA) and the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC) jointly invited over 40 leading scientists active in ocean acidification research to a meeting at the Leibniz Institute of Marine Science (IFM-GEOMAR) in Kiel, Germany, in November 2008. At the meeting, which was sponsored by EPOCA, IOC, the Scientific Council on Oceanic Research (SCOR), the U.S. Ocean Carbon and Biogeochemistry Project (OCB) and the Kiel Excellence Cluster The Future Ocean, the basic structure and contents of what would become the Guide to Best Practices for Ocean Acidification Research and Data Reporting was agreed upon. In the following months, the workshop participants and additional invited experts prepared draft manuscripts for each of the sections, which were subsequently reviewed by independent experts. The guide was then made publicly available for an open community review before publication in May 2010. It was reprinted in July 2011.

The OA-ICC continues this effort by ensuring continued wide distribution of the Best Practices guide after the end of EPOCA, and plans to support the production of a revised version in the next few years.

Useful resources

• Guide to Best Practices for Ocean Acidification Research and Data Reporting - low res
• Guide to Best Practices for Ocean Acidification Research and Data Reporting - high res

• Chapter 1 - The carbon dioxide system in seawater: equilibrium chemistry and measurments
• Chapter 2 - Approaches and tools to manipulate the carbonate chemistry
• Chapter 3 - Atmospheric CO2 targets for ocean acidification perturbation experiments
• Chapter 4 - Designing ocean acidification experiments to maximize inference
• Chapter 5 - Bioassays, batch culture and chemostat experimentation
• Chapter 6 - Pelagic mesocosms
• Chapter 7 - Laboratory experiments and benthic mesocosm studies
• Chapter 8 - In situ perturbation experiments: natural venting sites, spatial/temporal gradients in ocean pH, manipulative in situ p(CO2) perturbations
• Chapter 9 - Studies of acid-base status and regulation
• Chapter 10 - Studies of metabolic rate and other characters across life stages
• Chapter 11 - Production and export of organic matter
• Chapter 12 - Direct measurements of calcification rates in planktonic organisms
• Chapter 13 - Measurements of calcification and dissolution of benthic organisms and communities
• Chapter 14 - Modelling considerations
• Chapter 15 - Safeguarding and sharing ocean acidification data

• Addendum to the Guide to Best Practices for Ocean Acidification Research and Data Reporting
  
• Guide to Best Practices for Ocean CO2 Measurements