Research to Resilience:
OAP’s FY25 Impact on oceans, coasts and Great Lakes acidification
Understanding what's at risk
Ocean acidification impacts some marine life that we rely on. Research on the biological response to ocean acidification focuses on economically, ecologically, and culturally important marine species. We can use what we learn about species’ physiology and sensitivity to acidification to anticipate how aquaculture, wild fisheries and food webs may be affected by changing ocean chemistry.
Coral reefs experienced the 4th global bleaching event in a decade, putting the $1.8B in flood protection benefits and other economic and cultural assets at risk. As part of the effort to understand coral reef health and its drivers, the National Coral Reef Monitoring Program completed its 2025 research mission in the Marianas. OAP funded the carbonate chemistry part of this shipboard mission, enabling researchers to identify how ocean chemistry tracks coral reef health in the Pacific. In addition, OAP sponsors long-term monitoring time series at multiple sites including Hawai’i and American Samoa. NCRMP jurisdictional reports provide synthesized data from these efforts and other data collection like this socioeconomic monitoring for the Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas Islands published in August 2025.
Ocean acidification may contribute to recruitment failure of Bering Sea red king crab
Red king crab harvest, valued at $96M in 2023, has experienced declines across the region. These declines were attributed to warming and changing ocean conditions, but lacked information to further determine likely contributors. A published study provided evidence that increased acidity as measured by pH is likely significantly contributing to the decline of Bristol Bay red king crab. Researchers at NOAA’s Alaska Fisheries Science Center Lab in Kodiak looked at whether ocean acidification or warming could explain this important fishery species in the southeast Bering Sea. They found that while ocean warming had a negligible effect, acidification explained ∼21% of the decline of recruitment to the fishery over 1980–2023, and ∼45% of the productivity decline since 2000. This is the first demonstrated correlation between increasing acidity and declining crab population, which can inform resource management and communities and industries that rely on red king crab in this region.
Ocean and coastal acidification directly impact shellfish aquaculture and fisheries across the nation. In the U.S. Pacific, documented declines in hatcheries and other operations from acidified waters created significant economic losses. After decades of research and implementing mitigation strategies, OAP funded a project that assessed shellfish aquaculture perceptions of ocean acidification. In a published study, those working in aquaculture shared that the perceived threat of ocean acidification has declined over the last decade, attributed largely to effective current adaptation strategies in hatcheries. Still, enhanced environmental monitoring emerged as an industry priority, with wariness of long-term effects and research informing different methods of rearing could support adaptive management.
