| Summary: | Póster.-- 113th Annual Meeting National Shellfisheries Association, Virtual Conference, March 22 – 25, 2021 Keystone species such as Mytilus galloprovincialis play a special role in the structure of ecological communities and in determining biodiversity. A glycoprotein named KEYSTONEin was characterized in M. galloprovincialis, M. edulis and M. californianus. Its role is crucial since it constitutes a cue of predation for sea stars. In this work KEYSTONEin expression was analyzed under a predictable ocean acidification (1200 CO2 ppm) regarding the current situation (400 ppm) to determine if it could be affected by climate change. Mussels were acclimated to the experimental pCO2 concentrations (400 and 1200 µatm) for a month in 9-L tanks with semi-static system. After that, half population was exposed to crushed conspecifics for a three -week period. Four individuals were collected from each experimental group and dissected. Several tissues were sampled for RNA and/or protein isolation and qPCR was carried out for KEYSTONEin expression. There is a tendency towards downregulation of KEYSTONEin under acidification conditions without the faux prey. These results seem to suggest that ocean acidification could play a detrimental role in keystone molecules expression. This might lead to important ecological effects such us spatial distribution not only for foundation species but also for other species. Nonetheless, when the faux prey is introduced, the predation signal seems to be strong enough to mask the effect of acidification. No
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