CO2 induced seawater acidification impacts sea urchin larval development I: Elevated metabolic rates decrease scope for growth and induce developmental delay

Anthropogenic CO(2) emissions are acidifying the world's oceans. A growing body of evidence is showing that ocean acidification impacts growth and developmental rates of marine invertebrates. Here we test the impact of elevated seawater pCO(2) (129Pa, 1271 atm) on early development, larval meta...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Comparative Biochemistry and Physiology Part A: Molecular & Integrative Physiology
Main Authors: Stumpp, Meike, Wren, J., Melzner, Frank, Thorndyke, M. C., Dupont, S. T.
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: Elsevier 2011
Subjects:
Online Access:https://oceanrep.geomar.de/id/eprint/12756/
https://oceanrep.geomar.de/id/eprint/12756/1/Stumpp.pdf
https://oceanrep.geomar.de/id/eprint/12756/2/mmc1.doc
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cbpa.2011.06.022
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Summary:Anthropogenic CO(2) emissions are acidifying the world's oceans. A growing body of evidence is showing that ocean acidification impacts growth and developmental rates of marine invertebrates. Here we test the impact of elevated seawater pCO(2) (129Pa, 1271 atm) on early development, larval metabolic and feeding rates in a marine model organism, the sea urchin Strongylocentrotus purpuratus. Growth and development was assessed by measuring total body length, body rod length, postoral rod length and posterolateral rod length. Comparing these parameters between treatments suggests that larvae suffer from a developmental delay (by ca. 8%) rather than from the previously postulated reductions in size at comparable developmental stages. Further, we found maximum increases in respiration rates of +100% under elevated pCO(2), while body length corrected feeding rates did not differ between larvae from both treatments. Calculating scope for growth illustrates that larvae raised under high pCO(2) spent an average of 39 to 45% of the available energy for somatic growth, while control larvae could allocate between 78 and 80% of the available energy into growth processes. Our results highlight the importance of defining a standard frame of reference when comparing a given parameter between treatments, as observed differences can be easily due to comparison of different larval ages with their specific set of biological characters.