Effect of ocean acidification on the early life stages of the blue mussel Mytilus edulis

By F. Gazeau, Jean-Pierre Gattuso, C. Dawber, A. Pronker, F. Peene, J. Peene, Carlo H. R. Heip, Jack J. Middelburg. 2010

278 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Abstract. Several experiments have shown a decrease of growth and calcification of organisms at decreased pH levels. There is a growing interest to focus on early life stages that are believed to be more sensitive to environmental disturbances such as hypercapnia. Here, we present experimental data, acquired in a commercial hatchery, demonstrating that the growth of planktonic mussel (Mytilus edulis) larvae is significantly affected by a decrease of pH to a level expected for the end of the century. Even though there was no significant effect of a 0.25–0.34 pH unit decrease on hatching and mortality rates during the first 2 days of development nor during the following 13-day period prior to settlement, final shells were respectively 4.5±1.3 and 6.0±2.3% smaller at pHNBS~7.8 (pCO2~1100–1200 μatm) than at a control pHNBS of ~8.1 (pCO2~460–640 μatm). Moreover, a decrease of 12.0±5.4% of shell thickness was observed after 15d of development. More severe impacts were found with a decrease of ~0.5 pHNBS unit during the first 2 days of development which could be attributed to a decrease of calcification due to a slight undersaturation of seawater with respect to aragonite. Indeed, important effects on both hatching and D-veliger shell growth were found. Hatching rates were 24±4% lower while D-veliger shells were 12.7±0.9% smaller at pHNBS~7.6 (pCO2~1900 μatm) than at a control pHNBS of ~8.1 (pCO2~540 μatm). Although these results show that blue mussel larvae are still able to develop a shell in seawater undersaturated with respect to aragonite, the observed decreases of hatching rates and shell growth could lead to a significant decrease of the settlement success. As the environmental conditions considered in this study do not necessarily reflect the natural conditions experienced by this species at the time of spawning, future studies will need to consider the whole larval cycle (from fertilization to settlement) under environmentally relevant conditions in order to investigate the potential ecological and economical losses of a decrease of this species fitness in the field.

Subfields: Global and Planetary Change, Oceanography

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/1620aa4e0d5559e23338fd8d2616c18094c2afd8

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Citations in the corpus

Moderate seawater acidification does not elicit long-term metabolic depression in the blue mussel Mytilus edulis (2010, background): “It has been already revealed that mussel reproduction is highly susceptible to environmental stress such as extreme tem- peratures and elevated pCO2 (Petes et al. 2007; Whitman Miller et al. 2009; Gazeau et al. 2010).”
Effects of ocean acidification and elevated temperature on shell plasticity and its energetic basis in an intertidal gastropod (2013, background): “…in shell growth of the oysters Crassostrea gigas (Lannig et al. 2010) and Crassostrea virginica (Beniash et al. 2010), larvae of the Mediterranean pteropods Cavolinia inflexa (Co - meau et al. 2010) and the mussels Mytilus edulis (Gazeau et al. 2010) and Mytilus californianus (Gaylord et al. 2011).”
Adult exposure influences offspring response to ocean acidification in oysters (2012, background): “This suggests that there are carry-over effects from adults exposed to elevated Pco2, which may help to compensate or reduce the negative effects of elevated Pco2 on size and rate of development of mollusc larvae as found in previous acute studies (Kurihara et al., 2008a; Parker et al., 2009, 2010; ”
Populations of the Sydney rock oyster, Saccostrea glomerata, vary in response to ocean acidification (2011, background): “2009) and reduced development and size, and increased abnormality and mortality of larvae (Kurihara and Shirayama 2004; Kurihara et al. 2007; Dupont et al. 2008; Havenhand et al. 2008; Findlay et al. 2009; Miller et al. 2009; Parker et al. 2009, 2010; Gazeau et al. 2010).”
Impacts of ocean acidification on marine shelled molluscs (2013, background): “Similar results were found in the mussels M. edulis (Gazeau et al. 2010) and M. trossulus (Sunday et al. 2011), where larvae exhibited a reduction in size and shell thickness (for M. edulis only) when reared in CO 2 -acidiﬁed sea water ( - 0.3 pH unit) compared with the controls.”
Tolerance of juvenile Mytilus galloprovincialis to experimental seawater acidification (2012, background): “Bamber (1990), Michaelidis et al. (2005) and Gazeau et al. (2010), among others, recorded suppression of feeding activity and growth, depressed metabolism, increased N excretion and loss of tissue weight for marine bivalves exposed to reduced seawater pH.”
Linking the biological impacts of ocean acidification on oysters to changes in ecosystem services: A review (2017, background): “…for inefficient feeding and 167 delayed development, but doing so may subsequently affect the fitness, 168 competitive ability and survivorship of the individual at later life-history stages 169 (Anil et al., 2001; Gazeau et al., 2010; Rumrill, 1990; Talmage and Gobler, 170 2009).”
Acidification and warming affect both a calcifying predator and prey, but not their interaction (2012, background): “Yet, although marine snails have been shown to be negatively affected by CO2-induced seawater acidification (Bibby et al. 2007, Hall-Spencer et al. 2008, Ellis et al. 2009), crabs appear to be capable of physiologically counteracting decreasing pH values in the environment (Pane & Barry 2007,…”
Effects of seawater pCO2 and temperature on shell growth, shell stability, condition and cellular stress of Western Baltic Sea Mytilus edulis (L.) and Arctica islandica (L.) (2013, background): “sw pCO2 [ 1,800 latm, Gazeau et al. 2007; Michaelidis et al. 2005; Melzner et al. 2011) and Welladsen et al. (2010) found shell stability of oysters Pinctada fucata to be reduced at pH B 7.”
The Impact of Ocean Acidification on Reproduction, Early Development and Settlement of Marine Organisms (2011, unknown): “galloprovincialis [57]; gastropod, Littorina obtusata shorter lateral, but longer spiral shell length [63] and Saccostrea glomerata [35,39,64]), decreases in shell length and thickness in the mussel (Mytilus edulis [65]), hatching rate (gastropod, Littorina obtusata [63], mussel Mytilus edulis [65])”