The impact of climate change on larvae of oysters

• Main Author: Gibbs, Mitchell
• Format: Thesis
• Language: English
• Published: The University of Sydney 2020
• Subjects: Climate Change; Lipids; Oysters; Pacific; Pacific oyster
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/2123/24912

Marine larvae are a critical life history stage of marine molluscs which will be impacted by climate change. There is a pressing need to understand whether marine molluscs will have the capacity to adapt and persist in this era of rapid change. Transgenerational plasticity is a mechanism for rapid acclimation of marine organisms which result in resilient offspring when exposed to climate change. The overall aim of this thesis was to determine the impact of climate change on the larvae of the native Sydney rock oyster, Saccostrea glomerata and invasive Pacific oyster Magallana gigas. The main hypothesis tested was that whether responses of larvae would be improved through transgenerational exposure to climate change stress including warming and elevated pCO2CO2 on the morphological, physiological and lipid energetics. The experiments in this thesis showed that the larvae of M. gigas may be more robust than the larvae of S. glomerata when exposed to near future climate change conditions, however, S. glomerata may have a greater scope for transgenerational plasticity to cope with a changing climate. This thesis supports the idea that although transgenerational parental conditioning has been suggested as an acclimatory mechanism for marine organisms to cope with the stress of climate change it may not equally be a panacea to all conditions for all oyster species. This thesis has also demonstrated that larval mortality is not likely due to the expiration of lipid reserves when starved or exposed to warming and acidification. The findings of this thesis suggest that the dynamic between the native S. glomerata and invasive M. gigas may be altered as estuarine change in South eastern Australia accelerates. These findings will inform the global bivalve aquaculture industry worth $44 million to the state of New South Wales and $50 billion to the globe, which is at risk due to global climate change.