Environmental constraints on growth, age and lifetime metabolic budgets of the bivalve Arctica islandica

• Main Author: Begum, Salma
• Other Authors: Brey, Thomas, Bischof, Kai
• Format: Doctoral or Postdoctoral Thesis
• Language: English
• Published: Universität Bremen 2009
• Subjects: environment; constraints; Arctica islandica; energy budget; evolution; 570; 570 Life sciences; biology; ddc:570; Kattegat; White Sea; Iceland; North Atlantic; North East Atlantic; Ocean quahog
• Online Access: https://media.suub.uni-bremen.de/handle/elib/2704; https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:gbv:46-diss000115674

In order to understand the present, environmental knowledge from the past is important. Observational records of environmental data are spatiotemporally incomplete and extremely scarce prior to AD 1860. Large scale environmental variability can be well represented by integrating data from a limited number of geographically scattered indicators or 'proxies' of past climate. This is partly achieved by the analysis of tree rings and of marine sediments cores. Long term environmental reconstruction with high resolution can be achieved by the calcareous skeleton of long lived invertebrates. In the last decade the ocean quahog Arctica islandica has attracted increasing interest among marine biologists owing to its extremely long life span approaching 400 y, and occurrence along the entire North Atlantic Ocean margins. But even more important is that its calcareous shell archives information on past environmental conditions in the morphological growth patterns and biogeochemical properties. The Ocean quahog A. islandica may become an important proxy in environmental change research, although until now the full capabilities of this species have not yet been fully realised.This thesis is an attempt to achieve deeper insight of the environmental proxy A. islandica, in terms of its environment, biology as well as population dynamics and evolutionary history. In order to achieve this goal, a number of approaches targeting six different sites of the North East Atlantic Ocean (i.e. Norwegian coast, Kattegat, Kiel Bay (Baltic Sea), White Sea, German Bight (North Sea) and off North East Iceland) were developed: (i) A general metabolic model which allows calibration of individual metabolic rates of A. islandica from five populations to body mass, water temperature, age and site. (ii) Growth and energy budget models of A. islandica at six different sites allowed a better understanding of the ecological role of the bivalve in its environment and to enable a linkage of the dynamics of A. islandica populations to environmental ...