Effects of ocean acidification on embryonic respiration and development of a temperate wrasse living along a natural CO2 gradient

• Main Authors: Cattano, Carlo, Giomi, Folco, Milazzo, Marco
• Format: Dataset
• Language: English
• Published: PANGAEA 2016
• Subjects: Alkalinity; total; Animalia; Aragonite saturation state; Baia_di_Levante; Bicarbonate ion; Calcite saturation state; Calculated using seacarb after Nisumaa et al. (2010); Carbon; inorganic; dissolved; Carbonate ion; Carbonate system computation flag; Carbon dioxide; Chordata; CO2 vent; Coast and continental shelf; Eggs area; standard error; EXP; Experiment; Field experiment; Figure; Fugacity of carbon dioxide (water) at sea surface temperature (wet air); Growth/Morphology; Hatchling length; Mediterranean Sea; Nekton; OA-ICC; Ocean Acidification International Coordination Centre; Oxygen; standard deviation; Partial pressure of carbon dioxide; Partial pressure of carbon dioxide (water) at sea surface temperature (wet air); Pelagos; pH; Registration number of species; Reproduction; Respiration; Respiration rate; Salinity; Ocean acidification
• Online Access: https://doi.pangaea.de/10.1594/PANGAEA.864094; https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.864094

Volcanic CO2 seeps provide opportunities to investigate the effects of ocean acidification on organisms in the wild. To understand the influence of increasing CO2 concentrations on the metabolic rate (oxygen consumption) and the development of ocellated wrasse early life stages, we ran two field experiments, collecting embryos from nesting sites with different partial pressures of CO2 [pCO2; ambient (400 µatm) and high (800-1000 µatm)] and reciprocally transplanting embryos from ambient- to high-CO2 sites for 30 h. Ocellated wrasse offspring brooded in different CO2 conditions had similar responses, but after transplanting portions of nests to the high-CO2 site, embryos from parents that spawned in ambient conditions had higher metabolic rates. Although metabolic phenotypic plasticity may show a positive response to high CO2, it often comes at a cost, in this case as a smaller size at hatching. This can have adverse effects because smaller larvae often exhibit a lower survival in the wild. However, the adverse effects of increased CO2 on metabolism and development did not occur when embryos from the high-CO2 nesting site were exposed to ambient conditions, suggesting that offspring from the high-CO2 nesting site could be resilient to a wider range of pCO2 values than those belonging to the site with present-day pCO2 levels. Our study identifies a crucial need to increase the number of studies dealing with these processes under global change trajectories and to expand these to naturally high-CO2 environments, in order to assess further the adaptive plasticity mechanism that encompasses non-genetic inheritance (epigenetics) through parental exposure and other downstream consequences, such as survival of larvae.