Environmental Change Impacts on Marine Calcifiers: Spatial and Temporal Biomineralisation Patterns in Mytilid Bivalves
Environmental change is a major threat to marine ecosystems worldwide. Understanding the key biological processes and environmental factors mediating spatial and temporal species’ responses to habitat alterations underpins our ability to forecast impacts on marine ecosystems under any range of scena...
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ftunivcam:oai:www.repository.cam.ac.uk:1810/289445 2023-07-30T04:06:07+02:00 Environmental Change Impacts on Marine Calcifiers: Spatial and Temporal Biomineralisation Patterns in Mytilid Bivalves Telesca, Luca 2019-01-07T15:56:54Z application/pdf https://doi.org/10.17863/CAM.36694 https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/289445 en eng Gonville & Caius College Department of Earth Sciences University of Cambridge doi:10.17863/CAM.36694 https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/289445 Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/ climate change shellfish Mytilus blue mussels calcification multiple stressors resilience ocean acidification species interaction resistance museum collections morphology microstructure Thesis Doctoral Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) PhD in Earth Sciences 2019 ftunivcam https://doi.org/10.17863/CAM.36694 2023-07-10T21:39:05Z Environmental change is a major threat to marine ecosystems worldwide. Understanding the key biological processes and environmental factors mediating spatial and temporal species’ responses to habitat alterations underpins our ability to forecast impacts on marine ecosystems under any range of scenarios. This is especially important for calcifying species, many of which have both a high climate sensitivity and disproportionately strong ecological impacts in shaping marine communities. Although geographic patterns of calcifiers’ sensitivity to environmental changes are defined by interacting multiple abiotic and biotic stressors, local adaptation, and acclimation, knowledge on species’ responses to disturbance is derived largely from short- and medium-term laboratory and field experiments. Therefore, little is known about the biological mechanisms and key drivers in natural environments that shape regional differences and long-term variations in species vulnerability to global changes. In this thesis, I examined natural variations in shell characteristics, both morphology and biomineralisation, under heterogeneous environmental conditions i) across large geographical scales, spanning a 30° latitudinal range (3,334 km), and ii) over historical times, using museum collections (archival specimens from 1904 to 2016 at a single location), in mussels of the genus Mytilus. The aim was to observe whether plasticity in calcareous shell morphology, production, and composition mediates spatial and temporal patterns of resistance to climate change in these critical foundation species. For the morphological analyses, the combined use of new statistical methods and multiple study systems at various geographical scales allowed the uncoupling of the contribution of development, genetic status, and environmental factors to shell morphology. I found salinity had the strongest effect on the latitudinal patterns of Mytilus shape. Temperature and food supply, however, were the main predictor of mussel shape heterogeneity. My results ... Doctoral or Postdoctoral Thesis Ocean acidification Apollo - University of Cambridge Repository |
institution |
Open Polar |
collection |
Apollo - University of Cambridge Repository |
op_collection_id |
ftunivcam |
language |
English |
topic |
climate change shellfish Mytilus blue mussels calcification multiple stressors resilience ocean acidification species interaction resistance museum collections morphology microstructure |
spellingShingle |
climate change shellfish Mytilus blue mussels calcification multiple stressors resilience ocean acidification species interaction resistance museum collections morphology microstructure Telesca, Luca Environmental Change Impacts on Marine Calcifiers: Spatial and Temporal Biomineralisation Patterns in Mytilid Bivalves |
topic_facet |
climate change shellfish Mytilus blue mussels calcification multiple stressors resilience ocean acidification species interaction resistance museum collections morphology microstructure |
description |
Environmental change is a major threat to marine ecosystems worldwide. Understanding the key biological processes and environmental factors mediating spatial and temporal species’ responses to habitat alterations underpins our ability to forecast impacts on marine ecosystems under any range of scenarios. This is especially important for calcifying species, many of which have both a high climate sensitivity and disproportionately strong ecological impacts in shaping marine communities. Although geographic patterns of calcifiers’ sensitivity to environmental changes are defined by interacting multiple abiotic and biotic stressors, local adaptation, and acclimation, knowledge on species’ responses to disturbance is derived largely from short- and medium-term laboratory and field experiments. Therefore, little is known about the biological mechanisms and key drivers in natural environments that shape regional differences and long-term variations in species vulnerability to global changes. In this thesis, I examined natural variations in shell characteristics, both morphology and biomineralisation, under heterogeneous environmental conditions i) across large geographical scales, spanning a 30° latitudinal range (3,334 km), and ii) over historical times, using museum collections (archival specimens from 1904 to 2016 at a single location), in mussels of the genus Mytilus. The aim was to observe whether plasticity in calcareous shell morphology, production, and composition mediates spatial and temporal patterns of resistance to climate change in these critical foundation species. For the morphological analyses, the combined use of new statistical methods and multiple study systems at various geographical scales allowed the uncoupling of the contribution of development, genetic status, and environmental factors to shell morphology. I found salinity had the strongest effect on the latitudinal patterns of Mytilus shape. Temperature and food supply, however, were the main predictor of mussel shape heterogeneity. My results ... |
format |
Doctoral or Postdoctoral Thesis |
author |
Telesca, Luca |
author_facet |
Telesca, Luca |
author_sort |
Telesca, Luca |
title |
Environmental Change Impacts on Marine Calcifiers: Spatial and Temporal Biomineralisation Patterns in Mytilid Bivalves |
title_short |
Environmental Change Impacts on Marine Calcifiers: Spatial and Temporal Biomineralisation Patterns in Mytilid Bivalves |
title_full |
Environmental Change Impacts on Marine Calcifiers: Spatial and Temporal Biomineralisation Patterns in Mytilid Bivalves |
title_fullStr |
Environmental Change Impacts on Marine Calcifiers: Spatial and Temporal Biomineralisation Patterns in Mytilid Bivalves |
title_full_unstemmed |
Environmental Change Impacts on Marine Calcifiers: Spatial and Temporal Biomineralisation Patterns in Mytilid Bivalves |
title_sort |
environmental change impacts on marine calcifiers: spatial and temporal biomineralisation patterns in mytilid bivalves |
publisher |
Gonville & Caius College |
publishDate |
2019 |
url |
https://doi.org/10.17863/CAM.36694 https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/289445 |
genre |
Ocean acidification |
genre_facet |
Ocean acidification |
op_relation |
doi:10.17863/CAM.36694 https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/289445 |
op_rights |
Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/ |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.17863/CAM.36694 |
_version_ |
1772818526101307392 |