Sensitivity of early life stages of Antarctic fishes to future ocean conditions

• Main Author: Flynn, Erin Elizabeth
• Other Authors: Biology
• Format: Thesis
• Language: English
• Published: San Francisco State University 2015
• Subjects: Antarctic; The Antarctic; Antarc*; Ocean acidification
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10211.3/132946

Predicting the response of marine fish to ocean climate change has important implications for fisheries and conservation, and recent work has suggested that early life stages of fishes may be the most vulnerable. To date very little research has focused on exposure during embryogenesis, particularly with the concurrent changes in temperature and pH predicted by the end of the century. The protracted embryogenesis (-10 months) of the Antarctic dragonfish, Gymnodraco acuticeps, provides the opportunity to examine the impacts of potential synergistic stressors on embryo physiology over a fine time scale. Using an integrative, experimental approach, our research examined the impacts of near-future warming (+2??C) and ocean acidification (650 and 1000|xatm pCOi) on survival, development, and metabolic processes during gastrulation to early segmentation. Increased temperature had a greater overall impact on survival, development, and metabolism than changes in pC0 2 levels, suggesting that temperature may be the immediate driver of change at the organismal level. However, under future warming and acidification, survival synergystically decreased, highlighting the potential for marine species to be more vulnerable to multiple changes in future oceans than currently predicted.