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Calcification in the Shore Crab, Carcinus Maenas (L.): pH and the Precipitation of Carbonate From Sea Water and Blood

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 May 2009

Peter S. B. Digby
Peter S. B. Digby
Affiliation:
Department of Biology, McGill University, Montreal, P.Q., Canada
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Extract

Much evidence has suggested that calcification in Carcinus and certain other marine organisms may arise at least partly by the local formation of base. The extent of changes of pH needed to precipitate calcium carbonate from sea water or from the blood of the crab are not known with certainty. These have been investigated, using sea water and crabs from the coast of Maine.

Mean sea water pH, mostly as measured in aerated samples used for experiments in the laboratory, was 8·00, a little below the values commonly found close to the shore in summer. The corresponding mean blood pH was 7·12. Crushing calcified crab cuticle in sea-water raised the pH, showing the sea water to be below saturation with the salts concerned. The rise in pH was slightly greater in the more dilute suspensions, an effect attributed to the mixed composition of the calcifying salts. Thus in one group of experiments cuticle crushed in sea water in proportions 1:20 and 112·7 raised its pH by 0·66 and 0·62 units respectively, and extrapolation suggested that interstitial fluid of almost zero volume would equilibrate at 0·38 pH units above sea water. Crushing cuticle in crab blood in proportion 1:2·7 raised its pH by 1·03 units, showing the plasma also to be unsaturated with carbonate.

Carbonates were precipitated from sea water by rendering it alkaline with sodium hydroxide; in four experiments the first crystallites were found in samples in which in 3 days after addition of base pH had fallen to between 8·46 and 9·30. In a longer series of experiments with crab plasma, crystals were first seen in samples in which after three days the mean pH had fallen to 8–09. Crystallites at the surface formed mosaics of spherulites closely resembling those of normal crab cuticle.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of the Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom , Volume 64 , Issue 1 , February 1984 , pp. 233 - 248
Copyright
Copyright © Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom 1984

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