Ocean acidification impacts on sperm mitochondrial membrane potential bring sperm swimming behaviour near its tipping point, supplement to: Schlegel, Peter; Binet, Monique T; Havenhand, Jonathan N; Doyle, Christopher J; Williamson, Jane E (2015): Ocean acidification impacts on sperm mitochondrial membrane potential bring sperm swimming behaviour near its tipping point. Journal of Experimental Biology, 218(7), 1084-1090

• Main Authors: Schlegel, Peter, Binet, Monique T, Havenhand, Jonathan N, Doyle, Christopher J, Williamson, Jane E
• Format: Dataset
• Language: English
• Published: PANGAEA - Data Publisher for Earth & Environmental Science 2015
• Subjects: Animalia; Behaviour; Benthic animals; Benthos; Bottles or small containers/Aquaria <20 L; Centrostephanus rodgersii; Coast and continental shelf; Echinodermata; Laboratory experiment; Reproduction; FOS Medical biotechnology; Single species; South Pacific; Temperate; Species; Treatment; Identification; Percentage; Percentage, standard error; Motile sperm, speed; Speed, standard error; Mitochondrial activity; Mitochondrial activity, standard error; pH; pH, standard error; Temperature, water; Temperature, water, standard error; Salinity; Salinity, standard error; Alkalinity, total; Alkalinity, total, standard error; Partial pressure of carbon dioxide water at sea surface temperature wet air; Calcite saturation state; Aragonite saturation state; Carbonate system computation flag; Carbon dioxide; Fugacity of carbon dioxide water at sea surface temperature wet air; Bicarbonate ion; Carbonate ion; Carbon, inorganic, dissolved; Experiment; Potentiometric; Potentiometric titration; Calculated using CO2SYS; Calculated using seacarb after Nisumaa et al. 2010; Ocean Acidification International Coordination Centre OA-ICC; Pacific; Doyle; Williamson; Monique; Ocean acidification
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.1594/pangaea.848011; https://doi.pangaea.de/10.1594/PANGAEA.848011

Broadcast spawning marine invertebrates are susceptible to environmental stressors such as climate change, as their reproduction depends on the successful meeting and fertilization of gametes in the water column. Under near-future scenarios of ocean acidification, the swimming behaviour of marine invertebrate sperm is altered. We tested whether this was due to changes in sperm mitochondrial activity by investigating the effects of ocean acidification on sperm metabolism and swimming behaviour in the sea urchin Centrostephanus rodgersii. We used a fluorescent molecular probe (JC-1) and flow cytometry to visualize mitochondrial activity (measured as change in mitochondrial membrane potential, MMP). Sperm MMP was significantly reduced in delta pH -0.3 (35% reduction) and delta pH -0.5 (48% reduction) treatments, whereas sperm swimming behaviour was less sensitive with only slight changes (up to 11% decrease) observed overall. There was significant inter-individual variability in responses of sperm swimming behaviour and MMP to acidified seawater. We suggest it is likely that sperm exposed to these changes in pH are close to their tipping point in terms of physiological tolerance to acidity. Importantly, substantial inter-individual variation in responses of sperm swimming to ocean acidification may increase the scope for selection of resilient phenotypes, which, if heritable, could provide a basis for adaptation to future ocean acidification. : In order to allow full comparability with other ocean acidification data sets, the R package seacarb (Gattuso et al, 2015) was used to compute a complete and consistent set of carbonate system variables, as described by Nisumaa et al. (2010). In this dataset the original values were archived in addition with the recalculated parameters (see related PI). The date of carbonate chemistry calculation is 2015-07-09.