Third International Symposium on the Ocean in a High CO2 World

Over 500 scientists are currently gathered in Monterey, California sharing their research results in order to create a better understanding on how our oceans will change in the future. This number has doubled since the previous meeting held in Monaco in 2008 highlighting not only the concern of scientists over the matter of ‘Ocean Acidification’ but also the explosion of this research field which has been invested into in recent times.

Many scientists have concentrated on the responses of organisms to either CO2 alone or to multi-stressors (e.g. temperature). Socioeconomics and ecosystem impacts have shown an increase in research effort at this meeting and it is predicted that evolutionary adaptation research will come into the limelight in the near future to contribute towards one the biggest biological interdisciplinary based questions of this century – How will organisms respond to a changing future?

Here at this meeting I have been presenting my research arising from my 3.5 years as a PhD student. This has been a great opportunity to learn more about my field and discuss the reasoning of mechanisms which may be responsible behind organism responses to changing seawater pH.

Thank you to the organising committee for selecting me for one of the prestigious NSF funding awards which allowed me to attend this exciting conference.