Ideas and perspectives: When ocean acidification experiments are not the same, repeatability is not tested

Williamson, Phillip; Pörtner, Hans-Otto; Widdicombe, Steve; Gattuso, Jean-Pierre

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-18-1787-2021

Articles | Volume 18, issue 5

https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-18-1787-2021

© Author(s) 2021. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-18-1787-2021

© Author(s) 2021. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 18, issue 5

Ideas and perspectives

|

15 Mar 2021

Ideas and perspectives |

| 15 Mar 2021

Ideas and perspectives: When ocean acidification experiments are not the same, repeatability is not tested

Phillip Williamson, Hans-Otto Pörtner, Steve Widdicombe, and Jean-Pierre Gattuso

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Final revised paper (published on 15 Mar 2021)
Preprint (discussion started on 03 Nov 2020)

Interactive discussion

Status: closed

AC: Author comment | RC: Referee comment | SC: Short comment | EC: Editor comment

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- Supplement

SC1: 'Pragmatism is also needed', M. Solan, 11 Nov 2020
- AC1: 'Reply on SC1 (Solan)', Phillip Williamson, 15 Jan 2021
SC2: 'No experiment can capture the complexity of the biological response to ocean acidification', Sam Dupont, 11 Nov 2020
- AC2: 'Reply to SC2 (Dupont)', Phillip Williamson, 15 Jan 2021
SC3: 'The importance of interactive discussions about consensus science', Sophie McCoy, 11 Nov 2020
- AC3: 'Reply to SC3 (McCoy)', Phillip Williamson, 15 Jan 2021
RC1: 'Defining criteria for future replication versus reproducibility studies', Anonymous Referee #1, 30 Nov 2020
- AC5: 'Reply to RC1', Phillip Williamson, 15 Jan 2021
RC2: 'Broaden the scope of consideration', Anonymous Referee #2, 18 Dec 2020
- AC6: 'Reply to RC2', Phillip Williamson, 15 Jan 2021
SC4: 'Comment to Williamson et al', Cristian Duarte, 21 Dec 2020
- AC4: 'Reply on SC4 (Duarte)', Phillip Williamson, 15 Jan 2021

Peer-review completion

AR: Author's response | RR: Referee report | ED: Editor decision

ED: Publish subject to minor revisions (review by editor) (27 Jan 2021) by Tyler Cyronak

AR by Phillip Williamson on behalf of the Authors (31 Jan 2021) Author's response Author's tracked changes

ED: Publish as is (08 Feb 2021) by Tyler Cyronak

Short summary

The reliability of ocean acidification research was challenged in early 2020 when a high-profile paper failed to corroborate previously observed impacts of high CO₂ on the behaviour of coral reef fish. We now know the reason why: the replicated studies differed in many ways. Open-minded and collaborative assessment of all research results, both negative and positive, remains the best way to develop process-based understanding of the impacts of ocean acidification on marine organisms.