Physiological and ecological response of marine coccolithophores to global climate change: a review

Coccolithophores are one of the marine phytoplankton functional groups, playing important roles in the marine carbon cycle through both photosynthetic and calcification processes. The oceans are considered as important sink of the anthropogenic CO₂. The rapid increase in atmospheric pCO₂ since the industrial revolution has caused the trend of global climate change, including ocean acidification, global warming and changes in the nutrient concentrations and irradiance in the mixed layer. These complex changes in environmental conditions will affect the physiology and ecology of marine phytoplankton simultaneously, which is the so-call environmental multiple stress. The response of coccolithophores to changes in multiple environmental drivers will also have complex feedback to marine carbon cycle. This review mainly overviews the current understanding of the effects of both single environmental driver (CO₂ concentration, temperature, and nutrient and irradiance levels) and the interaction of multiple environmental drivers on the physiology of coccolithophores and its implications on the marine biogeochemistry. Based on these recent research advances, the future research perspectives are also summarized.