Environmental change impacts on shell formation in the muricid Nucella lapillus ...

• Main Author: Mayk, Dennis
• Format: Thesis
• Language: English
• Published: Apollo - University of Cambridge Repository 2022
• Subjects: environmental change; biomineralisation; shell plasticity; climate change; intertidal; Ocean acidification; Nucella lapillus
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.17863/cam.89105; https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/341684

Environmental change is a significant threat to marine ecosystems worldwide. Ocean acidification, global warming and long-term emissions of anthropogenic effluents are all negatively impacting aquatic life. Marine calcifying organisms, in particular, are expected to be severely affected by decreasing seawater pH, resulting in shell dissolution and retardations during the formation and repair of shells. Understanding the underlying biological and environmental factors driving species vulnerabilities to habitat alterations is thus crucial to our ability to faithfully predict impacts on marine ecosystems under an array of environmental change scenarios. So far, existing knowledge about organism responses mainly stems from short to medium term laboratory experiments of single species or over- simplified communities. Although these studies have provided important insights, results may not translate to organism responses in a complex natural system requiring a more holistic experimental approach. In this thesis, I ...