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Comment by waserwill | Hacker News Reader

Suffocation really isn't the big issue here. Phytoplankton generate energy via photosynthesis, so as the temperature of water – and this the concentration of gases that are dissolved inside – changes, so too will the organisms' biological fitness. Since they reproduce very rapidly, and their populations enormous, plankton will be able to mutate their enzymes to be more appropriate for the situation (down side from the genomic perspective – decreased biodiversity, especially in species without sexual reproduction).

The more pressing concern is that larger, more slowly-reproducing aquatic organisms will experience significant strain to accommodate their metabolic needs. For many fish, crustaceans, coral, and others: rapid change in dissolved content on the ocean will cause population loss.

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Unless you can provide a source, I really doubt your first point. We already know of past bacterial mass extinctions that occurred due to climate change. They happened over much longer time scales than the ~80 years mentioned in this article, and phytoplankton evolve much more slowly than bacteria. There are limits to what evolution can overcome.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Oxygenation_Event

Oh, I never said that bacteria won't go extinct. Many will. I implied that from the decreased biodiversity part, but I should've made it more clear. Thing is, that because of their population sizes, there will always be outliers in terms of enzymatic activity. Mind, there are certainly limits. Species that survive such an event will be significantly different from their predecessors in the properties of their pathways. Nevertheless, seeing as many phytoplankta have life spans of several days, and that they inhabit large portions of the oceans, the removal of one 'species' of plankton from a region will likely open up the niche for another to inhabit. Life happens to contain enough competition to allow for life past mass extinctions. Different life, sure, but these self-replicating patterns are difficult to cull.

Unfortunately, entropy is a harsh mistress. Enzymes are catalysts and cannot do anything to change the equilibrium of a system. RuBisCo is the enzyme in autotrophs that fixes carbon dioxide into organic compounds, and that is a process that decreases entropy (two molecules form one). Increased temperature disfavors reactions that decrease entropy, and diminished dissolved CO2 further inhibits rate of carbon fixation.

True, enzymes cannot change the ∆G. However, there are many cases where an increased binding strength and rate of reactions using the products of the original reaction allow for a shift in equilibrium. Though, it may possibly make the system less profitable. I'm thinking of it from a biochemical perspective more so than a physical one, so take what I have written with a grain of salt. (For examples, you could look into the unprofitable steps of Glycolysis, Glyceraldehyde 3 Phosphate is not spontaneously used on its own, but the ATP used by the reaction ahead of it provides the impulse for the reaction before it. So long as the pathway is productive, they'll survive. (I enjoyed responding to this too much, thanks for the comment, mate))

Has this property been observed?

Of course, it is the basis of evolutionary theory. . .

Sometimes things adapt. Sometimes they go extinct. You don't get a guarantee about which will happen.

oh, right

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