| Summary: | Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Washington, 2014 As global climate change accelerates, due in large part to increasing emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases from fossil fuel use, agriculture, and large-scale changes in land use, natural ecosystems bear the consequences. For marine systems these include increased mean seawater temperature, changes in carbonate chemistry equilibria, and increased pollutant loading due to non-point run-off, among other effects. Human-induced environmental changes will not have the same magnitude of effect in all regions, but on average the changes occurring are rapid and significant. Natural populations will either need to acclimatize and/or adapt, or shift their ranges to enable continued existence. This dissertation explores the effects of ocean acidification on the Pacific oyster, Crassostrea gigas . Oysters are sedentary and inhabit a naturally variable environment (the intertidal zone) and thus may be pre-adapted to withstand rapid environmental change. Oysters and similarly sedentary organisms are ideal for investigating the effects of environmental change on biology because they are not able to escape these changes, but must respond physiologically (acclimatize) if they are to survive. Due to this ecological history, oysters provide a model that allows us to explore potential physiological mechanisms that are needed in a response to specific environmental changes as well as the limits of these mechanisms. In the first chapter, the effects of elevated partial pressure of CO 2 (pCO 2 , a major driver of ocean acidification) on oyster larvae are explored. Larvae were exposed to low pH during early development, a period that included the transition from energetic dependence on maternally derived lipids to dependence on exogenous resources. Larvae were found to experience a developmental delay at elevated pCO 2 , manifested as smaller size and slower rate of shell deposition. These significant effects of ocean acidification on early larval development may ...
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