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Phenotypic plasticity and adaptive evolution enable population persistence in response to global change. However, there are few experiments that test how these processes interact within and across generations, especially in marine species with broad distributions experiencing spatially and temporally variable temperature and p CO 2 . We employed a quantitative genetics experiment with the purple sea urchin, Strongylocentrotus purpuratus , to decompose family-level variation in transgenerational and developmental plastic responses to ecologically relevant temperature and p CO 2 . Adults were conditioned to controlled non-upwelling (high temperature, low p CO 2 ) or upwelling (low temperature, high p CO 2 ) conditions. Embryos were reared in either the same conditions as their parents or the crossed environment, and morphological aspects of larval body size were quantified. We find evidence of family-level phenotypic plasticity in response to different developmental environments. Among developmental environments, there was substantial additive genetic variance for one body size metric when larvae developed under upwelling conditions, although this differed based on parental environment. Furthermore, cross-environment correlations indicate significant variance for genotype-by-environment interactive effects. Therefore, genetic variation for plasticity is evident in early stages of S. purpuratus , emphasizing the importance of adaptive evolution and phenotypic plasticity in organismal responses to global change.
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Echinoid larvae can express food-conditioned morphological plasticity at ecologically relevant culture densities
The feeding larvae of many echinoids develop long postoral arms relative to body length when food is sparse but relatively short postoral arms when food is abundant, a response thought to adaptively adjust feeding capability. However, in an important recent study, larvae of Dendraster excentricus exhibited this food-conditioned plasticity only when reared at a high density typical of laboratory cultures; when reared at a lower density more representative of larval densities in nature, they did not exhibit this plastic response. This finding suggests that laboratory results cannot be easily extended to make inferences about phenotypic plasticity in nature. We replicated this study and extended it to an even lower larval culture density and to a second species, Lytechinus pictus . Larvae of D. excentricus developed longer arms adjusted for body length when fed the lower of 2 food rations at all culture densities, though differences were only marginally significant at the lower culture density in one experiment. Larvae of L. pictus tended to develop longer arms adjusted for body length at lower food rations, though differences only approached statistical significance at the highest culture density in one experiment. For both species, contrasts between food rations almost always showed an inverse relationship between postoral arm length and stomach length, consistent with prior work demonstrating trade-offs in investment in these 2 features characteristic of phenotypic plasticity. These results suggest that the feeding larvae of echinoids may exhibit food-conditioned plasticity of postoral arm length even at low natural densities.
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- Award ID(s):
- 1756531
- PAR ID:
- 10431258
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Marine Ecology Progress Series
- Volume:
- 694
- ISSN:
- 0171-8630
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 1 to 12
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
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Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Journal Article:
- https://doi.org/10.3354/meps14111
