Adaptive evolution of a key phytoplankton species to ocean acidification

By Kai T. Lohbeck, U. Riebesell, Thorsten B. H. Reusch. 2012

526 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Ocean acidification, the drop in seawater pH associated with the ongoing enrichment of marine waters with carbon dioxide from fossil fuel burning, may seriously impair marine calcifying organisms. Our present understanding of the sensitivity of marine life to ocean acidification is based primarily on short-term experiments, in which organisms are exposed to increased concentrations of CO2. However, phytoplankton species with short generation times, in particular, may be able to respond to environmental alterations through adaptive evolution. Here, we examine the ability of the world’s single most important calcifying organism, the coccolithophore Emiliania huxleyi, to evolve in response to ocean acidification in two 500-generation selection experiments. Specifically, we exposed E. huxleyi populations founded by single or multiple clones to increased concentrations of CO2. Around 500 asexual generations later we assessed their fitness. Compared with populations kept at ambient CO2 partial pressure, those selected at increased partial pressure exhibited higher growth rates, in both the single- and multiclone experiment, when tested under ocean acidification conditions. Calcification was partly restored: rates were lower under increased CO2 conditions in all cultures, but were up to 50% higher in adapted compared with non-adapted cultures. We suggest that contemporary evolution could help to maintain the functionality of microbial processes at the base of marine food webs in the face of global change.

Subfields: Global and Planetary Change, Oceanography

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/433db0b6ff8fa6642074363a6e9e74f4f4e0f6ae

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Citations in the corpus

Dissolved organic matter (DOM) release by phytoplankton in the contemporary and future ocean (2014, background): “Lohbeck et al. (2012) conducted evolution experiments that lasted at least 500 generations with Emiliania huxleyi grown under control and elevated CO2 conditions.”
Climate change, adaptation, and phenotypic plasticity: the problem and the evidence (2014, background): “The basic idea here is to establish experimental populations exposed to different environmental conditions, such as warming temperature (e.g., Van Doorslaer et al. 2007), increasing CO2 (e.g., Collins and Bell 2004), or acidification (e.g., Lohbeck et al. 2012).”
Understanding the responses of ocean biota to a complex matrix of cumulative anthropogenic change (2012, methodology): “Lohbeck et al. (2012) used a long-term approach to reveal that coccolithophores can adapt micro-evolutionarily to altered CO2/pH conditions.”
Genetic diversity and evolution in eukaryotic phytoplankton: revelations from population genetic studies (2017, background): “…by showing increased fitness in haploid and diploid clonal phytoplankton populations after multigeneration exposure to climate stressors e.g. warming or ocean acidification (Collins and Bell, 2004; Huertas et al., 2011; Flores-Moya et al., 2012; Lohbeck et al., 2012; Schlüter et al., 2014).”
Environmental controls on coccolithophore calcification (2012, methodology): “However, the work of Lohbeck et al. (2012) on E. huxleyi suggests that such problems may not be insuperable.”
Ocean acidification and marine microorganisms : responses and consequences (2015, background): “The chemical changes that occur when CO2 is absorbed by the ocean result in formation of carbonic acid which decreases seawater pH, carbonate ion concentration and calcium carbonate saturation (Lohbeck et al., 2012).”