Predicted impact of ocean acidification on a marine invertebrate: elevated CO 2 alters response to thermal stress in sea
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ORIGINAL PAPER
Predicted impact of ocean acidiWcation on a marine invertebrate: elevated CO2 alters response to thermal stress in sea urchin larvae Michael J. O’Donnell · LaTisha M. Hammond · Gretchen E. Hofmann
Received: 1 May 2008 / Accepted: 19 November 2008 / Published online: 12 December 2008 © Springer-Verlag 2008
Abstract Ocean acidiWcation (OA) and the biological consequences of altered seawater chemistry have emerged as a signiWcant environmental threat to healthy marine ecosystems. Because a more acidic ocean interferes with Wxation of calcium carbonate to form shells or calciWed skeletons, future ocean chemistry may signiWcantly alter the physiology of calcifying marine organisms. These alterations may manifest themselves directly in the calciWcation process, or have synergistic eVects with other environmental factors such as elevated temperatures. New tools permit us to explore subtle changes in gene expression patterns in response to environmental conditions. We raised sea urchins (Strongylocentrotus franciscanus) under conditions simulating future atmospheric CO2 levels of 540 and 970 ppm. When larvae raised under elevated CO2 conditions were subjected to 1-h acute temperature stress, their ability to mount a physiological response (as measured by expression of the molecular chaperone hsp70) was reduced relative to those raised under ambient CO2 conditions. These results represent the Wrst use of gene expression
Communicated by T. Reusch. M. J. O’Donnell · G. E. Hofmann Marine Science Institute, University of California, Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA 93106, USA Present Address: M. J. O’Donnell (&) Friday Harbor Laboratories, University of Washington, Friday Harbor, WA 98250, USA e-mail: [email protected]; [email protected] L. M. Hammond · G. E. Hofmann Department of Ecology, Evolution and Marine Biology, University of California, Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA 93106, USA
assays to study the eVects of OA on sea urchin development. They highlight the importance of looking at multiple environmental factors simultaneously as this approach may reveal previously unsuspected biological impacts of atmospheric changes.
Introduction Ocean acidiWcation (OA) has been identiWed as perhaps the greatest anthropogenic threat to marine ecosystems (Halpern et al. 2008). This alteration in seawater chemistry is driven by increases in atmospheric CO2, resulting in reduced pH of surface waters (see, e.g., Skirrow and WhitWeld 1975; Feely et al. 2004; Caldeira and Wickett 2005; McNeil and Matear 2006). The magnitude of potential impacts of OA has been summarized in several recent governmental reports (e.g., Raven et al. 2005; Kleypas et al. 2006) that highlight expected biological consequences for a variety of marine ecosystems and their resident calcifying organisms. A body of recent work has underscored the deleterious eVects of OA on a variety of processes such as calciWcation, growth, reproduction, and development in a wide range of taxa including deep-sea corals (Guinotte et al. 2006), coralline alg
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