Adverse effects of ocean acidification on early development of squid (Doryteuthis pealeii)

• Published in: PLoS ONE
• Main Authors: Kaplan, Maxwell B., Mooney, T. Aran, McCorkle, Daniel C., Cohen, Anne L.
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Public Library of Science 2013
• Subjects: Ocean acidification
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/1912/6118

© The Author(s), 2013. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in PLoS ONE 8 (2013): e63714, doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0063714. Anthropogenic carbon dioxide (CO2) is being absorbed into the ocean, altering seawater chemistry, with potentially negative impacts on a wide range of marine organisms. The early life stages of invertebrates with internal and external aragonite structures may be particularly vulnerable to this ocean acidification. Impacts to cephalopods, which form aragonite cuttlebones and statoliths, are of concern because of the central role they play in many ocean ecosystems and because of their importance to global fisheries. Atlantic longfin squid (Doryteuthis pealeii), an ecologically and economically valuable taxon, were reared from eggs to hatchlings (paralarvae) under ambient and elevated CO2 concentrations in replicated experimental trials. Animals raised under elevated pCO2 demonstrated significant developmental changes including increased time to hatching and shorter mantle lengths, although differences were small. Aragonite statoliths, critical for balance and detecting movement, had significantly reduced surface area and were abnormally shaped with increased porosity and altered crystal structure in elevated pCO2-reared paralarvae. These developmental and physiological effects could alter squid paralarvae behavior and survival in the wild, directly and indirectly impacting marine food webs and commercial fisheries. This study was supported by a WHOI Student Summer Fellowship and WHOI-MIT Joint Program, the Penzance Endowed Fund, the John E. and Anne W. Sawyer Endowed Fund and NSF Research Grant No. EF-1220034. Additional support came from NSF OCE 1041106 to ALC and DCM, and NOAA Sea Grant award #NA10OAR4170083 to ALC and DCM.