Effect of ocean acidification on early life stages of Atlantic herring (Clupea harengus L.)

By Andre Franke, C. Clemmesen. 2011

173 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Abstract. Due to atmospheric accumulation of anthropogenic CO2 the partial pressure of carbon dioxide (pCO2) in surface seawater increases and the pH decreases. This process known as ocean acidification might have severe effects on marine organisms and ecosystems. The present study addresses the effect of ocean acidification on early developmental stages, the most sensitive stages in life history, of the Atlantic herring (Clupea harengus L.). Eggs of the Atlantic herring were fertilized and incubated in artificially acidified seawater (pCO2 1260, 1859, 2626, 2903, 4635 μatm) and a control treatment (pCO2 480 μatm) until the main hatch of herring larvae occurred. The development of the embryos was monitored daily and newly hatched larvae were sampled to analyze their morphometrics, and their condition by measuring the RNA/DNA ratios. Elevated pCO2 neither affected the embryogenesis nor the hatch rate. Furthermore the results showed no linear relationship between pCO2 and total length, dry weight, yolk sac area and otolith area of the newly hatched larvae. For pCO2 and RNA/DNA ratio, however, a significant negative linear relationship was found. The RNA concentration at hatching was reduced at higher pCO2 levels, which could lead to a decreased protein biosynthesis. The results indicate that an increased pCO2 can affect the metabolism of herring embryos negatively. Accordingly, further somatic growth of the larvae could be reduced. This can have consequences for the larval fish, since smaller and slow growing individuals have a lower survival potential due to lower feeding success and increased predation mortality. The regulatory mechanisms necessary to compensate for effects of hypercapnia could therefore lead to lower larval survival. Since the recruitment of fish seems to be determined during the early life stages, future research on the factors influencing these stages are of great importance in fisheries science.

Subfields: Environmental Engineering, Global and Planetary Change, Oceanography

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/7200eb3de7aa1f181805639bff28b9c877d3b1ac

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Citations in the corpus

Modelling climate change impacts on marine fish populations: process-based integration of ocean warming, acidification and other environmental drivers (2016, background): “Thus, additional stressors such as ocean acidification, 216 hypoxia or pollution can lead to increased mortality and impaired growth performance 217 (Franke and Clemmesen, 2011, Baumann et al., 2012, Frommel et al., 2012, Nikinmaa, 218 2013).”
Effects of elevated CO 2 in the early life stages of summer flounder, Paralichthys dentatus , and potential consequences of ocean acidification (2014, methodology): “, 2010, 2012, 2013); Baltic herring, Clupea harengus (Franke and Clemmesen, 2011); and walleye pollock, Theragra chalcogramma (Hurst et al.”
Offspring sensitivity to ocean acidification changes seasonally in a coastal marine fish (2014, background): “Furthermore, while experiments on larval Atlantic cod Gadus morhua and herring Clupea harengus indicated some adverse effects of elevated CO2 (Frommel et al. 2012b), similar experiments on larval Baltic cod and herring did not (Franke & Clemmesen 2011, Frommel et al. 2012a).”
Early life history and fisheries oceanography: new questions in a changing world (2014, background): “Embryonic duration and hatching success are unaffected at high CO2 in the majority of experiments conducted to date (e.g., Munday et al., 2009b; Franke and Clemmesen, 2011; Hurst et al., 2013).”