Seawater carbonate chemistry and dry weight of 5 and 15 days-post-hatch Atlantic cod larvae

• Main Authors: Mittermayer, Felix H, Stiasny, Martina H, Clemmesen, Catriona, Bayer, Till, Puvanendran, Velmurugu, Chierici, Melissa, Jentoft, Sissel, Reusch, Thorsten B H
• Format: Dataset
• Language: English
• Published: PANGAEA 2019
• Subjects: Age; Alkalinity; total; Animalia; Aragonite saturation state; Barents_Sea; 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; Coast and continental shelf; Containers and aquaria (20-1000 L or < 1 m**2); EXP; Experiment; Fugacity of carbon dioxide (water) at sea surface temperature (wet air); Gadus morhua; Growth/Morphology; Identification; Laboratory experiment; Larvae; dry mass; Nekton; North Atlantic; OA-ICC; Ocean Acidification International Coordination Centre; Partial pressure of carbon dioxide; standard deviation; Partial pressure of carbon dioxide (water) at sea surface temperature (wet air); Pelagos; pH; Polar; Registration number of species; Salinity; Sample; optional label/labor no; Single species; Species; Temperature; water; Treatment; Type; Uniform resource locator/link to reference; atlantic cod; Ocean acidification
• Online Access: https://doi.pangaea.de/10.1594/PANGAEA.911498; https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.911498

Ocean acidification (OA), a direct consequence of increasing atmospheric CO2 concentration dissolving in ocean waters, is impacting many fish species. Little is known about the molecular mechanisms underlying the observed physiological impacts in fish. We used RNAseq to characterize the transcriptome of 3 different larval stages of Atlantic cod (Gadus morhua) exposed to simulated OA at levels (1179 µatm CO2) representing end-of-century predictions compared to controls (503 µatm CO2), which were shown to induce tissue damage and elevated mortality in G. morhua. Only few genes were differentially expressed in 6 and 13 days-post-hatching (dph) (3 and 16 genes, respectively), during a period when maximal mortality as a response to elevated pCO2 occurred. At 36 dph, 1413 genes were differentially expressed, most likely caused by developmental asynchrony between the treatment groups, with individuals under OA growing faster. A target gene analysis revealed only few genes of the universal and well-defined cellular stress response to be differentially expressed. We thus suggest that predicted ocean acidification levels constitute a “stealth stress” for early Atlantic cod larvae, with a rapid breakdown of cellular homeostasis leading to organismal death that was missed even with an 8-fold replication implemented in this study.