"It may well be true that pteropods function less well when their environment becomes less basic but it is not because they are now in an acid bath."
My understanding is, you need to be in a supersaturation of calcium carbonate to form a shell. If you can't form a shell, you are about as well placed as a human embryo which can't form a sk…
"It may well be true that pteropods function less well when their environment becomes less basic but it is not because they are now in an acid bath."
My understanding is, you need to be in a supersaturation of calcium carbonate to form a shell. If you can't form a shell, you are about as well placed as a human embryo which can't form a skeleton. So if you are a pteropod, an environment which is just alkaline but slightly less so to a human, can indeed be an acid bath. Or if that's an exaggeration, it's a pardonable exaggeration if its effect is to make you extinct.
"It may well be true that pteropods function less well when their environment becomes less basic but it is not because they are now in an acid bath."
My understanding is, you need to be in a supersaturation of calcium carbonate to form a shell. If you can't form a shell, you are about as well placed as a human embryo which can't form a skeleton. So if you are a pteropod, an environment which is just alkaline but slightly less so to a human, can indeed be an acid bath. Or if that's an exaggeration, it's a pardonable exaggeration if its effect is to make you extinct.