Seawater carbonate chemistry and larval settlement of Sea urchin larvae

• Main Authors: Espinel-Velasco, Nadjejda, Agüera, Antonio, Lamare, Miles
• Format: Dataset
• Language: English
• Published: PANGAEA - Data Publisher for Earth & Environmental Science 2020
• Subjects: Animalia; Bottles or small containers/Aquaria <20 L; Coast and continental shelf; Echinodermata; Evechinus chloroticus; Laboratory experiment; Pelagos; Reproduction; FOS Medical biotechnology; Single species; South Pacific; Temperate; Zooplankton; Type; Species; Registration number of species; Uniform resource locator/link to reference; Experiment; Treatment; Substrate type; Time in hours; Settlement; Settlement, standard error; pH; pH, standard error; Condition; Salinity; Temperature, water; Alkalinity, total; Carbon, inorganic, dissolved; Partial pressure of carbon dioxide water at sea surface temperature wet air; Carbonate ion; Calcite saturation state; Carbonate system computation flag; Carbon dioxide; Fugacity of carbon dioxide water at sea surface temperature wet air; Bicarbonate ion; Aragonite saturation state; Calculated using SWCO2 Hunter, 2007; Calculated using seacarb after Nisumaa et al. 2010; Ocean Acidification International Coordination Centre OA-ICC; New Zealand; Pacific; Ocean acidification
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.1594/pangaea.925182; https://doi.pangaea.de/10.1594/PANGAEA.925182

Extensive research has shown that the early life stages of marine organisms are sensitive to ocean acidification (OA). Less is known, however, on whether larval settlement and metamorphosis may be affected, or by which mechanisms. These are key processes in the life cycle of most marine benthic organisms, since they mark the transition between the free swimming larval stage to the benthic life. We investigated whether OA could affect the larval settlement success of the sea urchin Evechinus chloroticus, a key coastal species with ecological, economic and cultural importance in New Zealand. We performed four settlement experiments to test whether reduced seawater pH (ranging from 8.1 to 7.0, at an interval of ∼0.2 pH units) alters larval settlement and metamorphosis success. Our results show that settlement success was not significantly reduced when the larvae were exposed to a range of reduced seawater pH treatments (8.1–7.0) at time of settlement (direct effects). Similarly, when presented with crustose coralline algae (CCA) pre-conditioned in different seawater pH of either pH 8.1 or 7.7 for 28 days, larval settlement success remained unaltered (indirect effects). We conclude that competent larvae in this species are resilient to OA at time of settlement. Further research on a range of taxa that vary in settlement selectivity and behaviour is needed in order to fully understand the effects of OA on the life cycle of marine invertebrates and the consequences it might have for future coastal marine ecosystems. : In order to allow full comparability with other ocean acidification data sets, the R package seacarb (Gattuso et al, 2020) 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 by seacarb is 2020-11-20.