Mussels have the ability to control biomineral production and chemical composition, producing shells with a range of functions. In addition to biological control, the environment also seems to influence the process of biomineralization; thus, shells can be used as archives of ambient water parameters during the calcium carbonate deposition. Past and present environmental conditions are recorded in the shells in the form of various proxies including Mg/Ca or Sr/Ca ratios. For such proxies to be accurate and robust, the influence of biological effects including the size of studied organism must be examined and eliminated or minimized, so that the environmental signal can be efficiently extracted. This study considers mineralogy and elemental composition of shells representing four size classes of Mytilus trossulus from the Baltic Sea. Obtained results suggest that mineralogy and chemical composition change throughout the shell development due to most likely a combination of environmental and biological factors. The content of aragonite increases with increasing shell size, while the bulk concentrations of Na, Cd, Cu, U, V, Zn and Pb were found to decrease with increasing height of the shells. Therefore, using mussels for environmental monitoring requires analysis of individuals in the same size range.

The Southern Ocean is showing one of the most rapid responses to human-induced global change, thus acting as a sentinel of the effects on marine species and ecosystems. Ocean warming and acidification are already impacting benthic species with carbonate skeletons, but the magnitude of these changes to species and ecosystems remains largely unknown. Here we provide the largest carbonate mineralogical dataset to date for Southern Ocean bryozoans, which are diverse, abundant and important as carbonate producers, thus making them excellent for monitoring the effects of ocean warming and acidification. To improve our understanding of how bryozoans might respond to ocean warming and acidification, we assess latitudinal and seafloor temperature patterns of skeletal mineralogy using bryozoan species occurrences together with temperature data for the first time. Our findings, combining new mineralogical data with published data from warmer regions, show that the proportions of high-Mg calcite and bimineralic species increase significantly towards lower latitudes and with decreasing seawater temperature. These patterns are consistent with the hypothesis that seawater temperature is likely a significant driver of variations in bryozoan mineralogy at a global scale.

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