Impacts of ocean acidification on early life-history stages and settlement of the coral-eating sea star Acanthaster planci
Coral reefs are marine biodiversity hotspots, but their existence is threatened by global change and local pressures such as land-runoff and overfishing. Population explosions of coral-eating crown of thorns sea stars (COTS) are a major contributor to recent decline in coral cover on the Great Barri...
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Online Access: | https://epubs.scu.edu.au/esm_pubs/2416 https://doi.org/10.1371/annotation/b03dc5d7-0cfd-4182-b39d-fb9299275d5c |
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ftsoutherncu:oai:epubs.scu.edu.au:esm_pubs-3428 2023-05-15T17:50:33+02:00 Impacts of ocean acidification on early life-history stages and settlement of the coral-eating sea star Acanthaster planci Uthicke, Sven Pecorino, Danilo Albright, Rebecca Negri, Andrew Peter Cantin, Neal Liddy, Michelle Dworjanyn, Symon A Kamya, Pamela Byrne, Maria Lamare, Miles 2013-01-01T08:00:00Z https://epubs.scu.edu.au/esm_pubs/2416 https://doi.org/10.1371/annotation/b03dc5d7-0cfd-4182-b39d-fb9299275d5c unknown ePublications@SCU School of Environment, Science and Engineering Papers article 2013 ftsoutherncu https://doi.org/10.1371/annotation/b03dc5d7-0cfd-4182-b39d-fb9299275d5c 2019-08-06T12:52:57Z Coral reefs are marine biodiversity hotspots, but their existence is threatened by global change and local pressures such as land-runoff and overfishing. Population explosions of coral-eating crown of thorns sea stars (COTS) are a major contributor to recent decline in coral cover on the Great Barrier Reef. Here, we investigate how projected near-future ocean acidification (OA) conditions can affect early life history stages of COTS, by investigating important milestones including sperm motility, fertilisation rates, and larval development and settlement. OA (increased pCO2 to 900–1200 matm pCO2) significantly reduced sperm motility and, to a lesser extent, velocity, which strongly reduced fertilization rates at environmentally relevant sperm concentrations. Normal development of 10 d old larvae was significantly lower under elevated pCO2 but larval size was not significantly different between treatments. Settlement of COTS larvae was significantly reduced on crustose coralline algae (known settlement inducers of COTS) that had been exposed to OA conditions for 85 d prior to settlement assays. Effect size analyses illustrated that reduced settlement may be the largest bottleneck for overall juvenile production. Results indicate that reductions in fertilisation and settlement success alone would reduce COTS population replenishment by over 50%. However, it is unlikely that this effect is sufficient to provide respite for corals from other negative anthropogenic impacts and direct stress from OA and warming on corals. Article in Journal/Newspaper Ocean acidification Southern Cross University: epublications@SCU PLoS ONE 9 1 |
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Southern Cross University: epublications@SCU |
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ftsoutherncu |
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Coral reefs are marine biodiversity hotspots, but their existence is threatened by global change and local pressures such as land-runoff and overfishing. Population explosions of coral-eating crown of thorns sea stars (COTS) are a major contributor to recent decline in coral cover on the Great Barrier Reef. Here, we investigate how projected near-future ocean acidification (OA) conditions can affect early life history stages of COTS, by investigating important milestones including sperm motility, fertilisation rates, and larval development and settlement. OA (increased pCO2 to 900–1200 matm pCO2) significantly reduced sperm motility and, to a lesser extent, velocity, which strongly reduced fertilization rates at environmentally relevant sperm concentrations. Normal development of 10 d old larvae was significantly lower under elevated pCO2 but larval size was not significantly different between treatments. Settlement of COTS larvae was significantly reduced on crustose coralline algae (known settlement inducers of COTS) that had been exposed to OA conditions for 85 d prior to settlement assays. Effect size analyses illustrated that reduced settlement may be the largest bottleneck for overall juvenile production. Results indicate that reductions in fertilisation and settlement success alone would reduce COTS population replenishment by over 50%. However, it is unlikely that this effect is sufficient to provide respite for corals from other negative anthropogenic impacts and direct stress from OA and warming on corals. |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Uthicke, Sven Pecorino, Danilo Albright, Rebecca Negri, Andrew Peter Cantin, Neal Liddy, Michelle Dworjanyn, Symon A Kamya, Pamela Byrne, Maria Lamare, Miles |
spellingShingle |
Uthicke, Sven Pecorino, Danilo Albright, Rebecca Negri, Andrew Peter Cantin, Neal Liddy, Michelle Dworjanyn, Symon A Kamya, Pamela Byrne, Maria Lamare, Miles Impacts of ocean acidification on early life-history stages and settlement of the coral-eating sea star Acanthaster planci |
author_facet |
Uthicke, Sven Pecorino, Danilo Albright, Rebecca Negri, Andrew Peter Cantin, Neal Liddy, Michelle Dworjanyn, Symon A Kamya, Pamela Byrne, Maria Lamare, Miles |
author_sort |
Uthicke, Sven |
title |
Impacts of ocean acidification on early life-history stages and settlement of the coral-eating sea star Acanthaster planci |
title_short |
Impacts of ocean acidification on early life-history stages and settlement of the coral-eating sea star Acanthaster planci |
title_full |
Impacts of ocean acidification on early life-history stages and settlement of the coral-eating sea star Acanthaster planci |
title_fullStr |
Impacts of ocean acidification on early life-history stages and settlement of the coral-eating sea star Acanthaster planci |
title_full_unstemmed |
Impacts of ocean acidification on early life-history stages and settlement of the coral-eating sea star Acanthaster planci |
title_sort |
impacts of ocean acidification on early life-history stages and settlement of the coral-eating sea star acanthaster planci |
publisher |
ePublications@SCU |
publishDate |
2013 |
url |
https://epubs.scu.edu.au/esm_pubs/2416 https://doi.org/10.1371/annotation/b03dc5d7-0cfd-4182-b39d-fb9299275d5c |
genre |
Ocean acidification |
genre_facet |
Ocean acidification |
op_source |
School of Environment, Science and Engineering Papers |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1371/annotation/b03dc5d7-0cfd-4182-b39d-fb9299275d5c |
container_title |
PLoS ONE |
container_volume |
9 |
container_issue |
1 |
_version_ |
1766157368668717056 |