An increase in anthropogenic carbon dioxide is driving oceanic chemical shifts resulting in a long-term global decrease in ocean pH, colloquially termed ocean acidification (OA). Previous studies have demonstrated that OA can have negative physiological consequences for calcifying organisms, especially during early life-history stages. However, much of the previous research has focused on static exposure to future OA conditions, rather than variable exposure to elevated
Understanding the mechanisms by which individual organisms respond and populations adapt to global climate change is a critical challenge. The role of plasticity and acclimation, within and across generations, may be essential given the pace of change. We investigated plasticity across generations and life stages in response to ocean acidification (OA), which poses a growing threat to both wild populations and the sustainable aquaculture of shellfish. Most studies of OA on shellfish focus on acute effects, and less is known regarding the longer term carryover effects that may manifest within or across generations. We assessed these longer term effects in red abalone (
- PAR ID:
- 10475261
- Publisher / Repository:
- Wiley-Blackwell
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Global Change Biology
- Volume:
- 30
- Issue:
- 1
- ISSN:
- 1354-1013
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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p CO2, which is more ecologically relevant for nearshore species. This study examines the effects of OA on embryonic and larval Pacific razor clams (Siliqua patula ), a bivalve that produces a concretion during early shell development. Larvae were spawned and cultured over 28 days under threep CO2treatments: a static highp CO2of 867 μatm, a variable, dielp CO2of 357 to 867 μatm, and an ambientp CO2of 357 μatm. Our results indicate that the calcium carbonate polymorphism of the concretion phase ofS. patula was amorphous calcium carbonate which transitioned to vaterite during the advanced D-veliger stage, with a final polymorphic shift to aragonite in adults, suggesting an increased vulnerability to dissolution under OA. However, exposure to elevatedp CO2appeared to accelerate the transition of larvalS. patula from the concretion stage of shell development to complete calcification. There was no significant impact of OA exposure to elevated or variablep CO2conditions onS. patula growth or HSP70 and calmodulin gene expression. This is the first experimental study examining the response of a concretion producing bivalve to future predicted OA conditions and has important implications for experimentation on larval mollusks and bivalve management. -
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Abstract Transgenerational plasticity (TGP)—when a parent or previous generation's environmental experience affects offspring phenotype without involving a genetic change—can be an important mechanism allowing for rapid adaptation. However, despite increasing numbers of empirical examples of TGP, there appears to be considerable variation in its strength and direction, yet limited understanding of what causes this variation. We compared patterns of TGP in response to stress across two populations with high versus low historical levels of stress exposure. Specifically, we expected that exposure to acute stress in the population experiencing historically high levels of stress would result in adaptive TGP or alternatively fixed tolerance (no parental effect), whereas the population with low levels of historical exposure would result in negative parental carryover effects. Using a common sessile marine invertebrate,
Bugula neritina , and a split brood design, we exposed parents from both populations to copper or control treatments in the laboratory and then had them brood copper‐naïve larvae. We then exposed half of each larval brood to copper and half to control conditions before allowing them to grow to maturity in the field. Maternal copper exposure had a strong negative carryover effect on adult offspring growth and survival in the population without historical exposure, especially when larvae themselves were exposed to copper. We found little to no maternal or offspring treatment effect on adult growth and survival in the population with a history of copper exposure. However, parents from this population produced larger larvae on average and were able to increase the size of their larvae in response to copper exposure, providing a potential mechanism for maintaining fitness and suggesting TGP through maternal provisioning. These results indicate that the ability to adjust offspring phenotype via TGP may be a locally adapted trait and potentially influenced by past patterns of exposure. -
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Abstract The Anthropocene climate has largely been defined by a rapid increase in atmospheric CO2,causing global climate change (warming) and ocean acidification (OA, a reduction in oceanic pH). OA is of particular concern for coral reefs, as the associated reduction in carbonate ion availability impairs biogenic calcification and promotes dissolution of carbonate substrata. While these trends ultimately affect ecosystem calcification, scaling experimental analyses of the response of organisms to OA to consider the response of ecosystems to OA has proved difficult. The benchmark of ecosystem-level experiments to study the effects of OA is provided through Free Ocean CO2Enrichment (FOCE), which we use in the present analyses for a 21-d experiment on the back reef of Mo’orea, French Polynesia. Two natural coral reef communities were incubated
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