Tolerance of juvenile Mytilus galloprovincialis to experimental seawater acidification
10 páginas, 3 tablas, 1 figura Coastal ocean acidification is expected to interfere with the physiology of marine bivalves. In this work, the effects of acidification on the physiology of juvenile mussels Mytilus galloprovincialis were tested by means of controlled CO2 perturbation experiments. The...
| Published in: | Marine Ecology Progress Series |
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| Main Authors: | , , , , |
| Format: | Article in Journal/Newspaper |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Inter Research
2012
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://hdl.handle.net/10261/65335 https://doi.org/10.3354/meps09660 |
| Summary: | 10 páginas, 3 tablas, 1 figura Coastal ocean acidification is expected to interfere with the physiology of marine bivalves. In this work, the effects of acidification on the physiology of juvenile mussels Mytilus galloprovincialis were tested by means of controlled CO2 perturbation experiments. The carbonate chemistry of natural (control) seawater was manipulated by injecting CO2 to attain 2 reduced pH levels: −0.3 and −0.6 pH units as compared with the control seawater. After 78 d of exposure, we found that the absorption efficiency and ammonium excretion rate of juveniles were inversely related to pH. Significant differences among treatments were not observed in clearance, ingestion and respiration rates. Coherently, the maximal scope for growth and tissue dry weight were observed in mussels exposed to the pH reduction ΔpH = −0.6, suggesting that M. galloprovincialis could be tolerant to CO2 acidification, at least in the highly alkaline coastal waters of Ria Formosa (SW Portugal). This is a contribution to the ‘The integrated impacts of marine acidification, temperature and precipitation changes on bivalve coastal biodiversity and fisheries: how to adapt?’ project, which is part of the CIRCLE Med projects, funded by the Regional Ministry of Innovation and Industry of the Galician Government (08MDS 018402PR), the Italian Ministry for Environment, Land and Sea, and the Foundation for Science and Technology of Portugal (ERA-CIRCLE/0004/2007), in the framework of the Circle ERA Net project (which is funded by the European Commission 6th Framework Programme). Peer reviewed |
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