An emerging theme in ocean acidification (OA) science is the importance of coupling chemical, biological, and ecological research and monitoring to better understand the fate of marine ecosystems. This approach has been applied to several coral reefs to document the impact of intensifying OA on these biologically diverse and economically valuable ecosystems. Coupling sustained observations of both environmental conditions and living marine resources allows establishment of a historical baseline, sets the stage for tracking the long-term impacts of global change amid large natural variability, and provides the observational backbone to support process studies, manipulative experiments, and diagnostic and forecast modeling.

Sutton, A., D. Manzello, and B. Gintert. 2015. Coupling chemical and biological monitoring to understand the impact of ocean acidification on coral reef ecosystems. Oceanography 28(2):28–29, https://doi.org/10.5670/oceanog.2015.28.

Drupp, P., E.H. De Carlo, F.T. Mackenzie, C.L. Sabine, R.A. Feely, and K.E. Shamberger. 2013. Comparison of CO2 dynamics and air-sea gas exchange in differing tropical reef environments. Aquatic Geochemistry 19:371–397, https://doi.org/10.1007/s10498-013-9214-7.
1. Eakin, C.M. 1996. Where have all the carbonates gone? A model comparison of calcium carbonate budgets before and after the 1982–1983 El Niño at Uva Island in the eastern Pacific. Coral Reefs 15:109–119, https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01771900.
2. Gledhill, D.K., and J.D. Tomczuk, eds. 2012. NOAA Coral Reef Conservation Program Ocean Acidification Science Plan Fiscal Years 2012–2016. NOAA Coral Reef Conservation Program, NOAA Technical Memorandum CRCP 18, Silver Spring, MD, 31 pp.
3. Hoegh-Guldberg, O., P.J. Mumby, A.J. Hooten, R.S. Steneck, P. Greenfield, E. Gomez, C.D. Harvell, P.F. Sale, A.J. Edwards, K. Caldeira, and others. 2007. Coral reefs under rapid climate change and ocean acidification. Science 318:1,737–1,742, https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1152509.
4. NCRMP. 2014. National Coral Reef Monitoring Plan. NOAA Coral Reef Conservation Program, Silver Spring, MD, 39 pp.

This is an open access article made available under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution, and reproduction in any medium or format as long as users cite the materials appropriately, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate the changes that were made to the original content. Images, animations, videos, or other third-party material used in articles are included in the Creative Commons license unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If the material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license, users will need to obtain permission directly from the license holder to reproduce the material.