Dataset Information

Cheating the Locals: Invasive Mussels Steal and Benefit from the Cooling Effect of Indigenous Mussels.

ABSTRACT: The indigenous South African mussel Perna perna gapes during periods of aerial exposure to maintain aerobic respiration. This behaviour has no effect on the body temperatures of isolated individuals, but when surrounded by conspecifics, beneficial cooling effects of gaping emerge. It is uncertain, however, whether the presence of the invasive mussel Mytilus galloprovincialis limits the ability of P. perna for collective thermoregulation. We investigated whether varying densities of P. perna and M. galloprovincialis influences the thermal properties of both natural and artificial mussel beds during periods of emersion. Using infrared thermography, body temperatures of P. perna within mixed artificial beds were shown to increase faster and reach higher temperatures than individuals in conspecific beds, indicating that the presence of M. galloprovincialis limits the group cooling effects of gaping. In contrast, body temperatures of M. galloprovincialis within mixed artificial mussel beds increased slower and exhibited lower temperatures than for individuals in beds comprised entirely of M. galloprovincialis. Interestingly, differences in bed temperatures and heating rates were largely dependent on the size of mussels, with beds comprised of larger individuals experiencing less thermal stress irrespective of species composition. The small-scale patterns of thermal stress detected within manipulated beds were not observed within naturally occurring mixed mussel beds. We propose that small-scale differences in topography, size-structure, mussel bed size and the presence of organisms encrusting the mussel shells mask the effects of gaping behaviour within natural mussel beds. Nevertheless, the results from our manipulative experiment indicate that the invasive species M. galloprovincialis steals thermal properties as well as resources from the indigenous mussel P. perna. This may have significant implications for predicting how the co-existence of these two species may change as global temperatures continue to rise.

SUBMITTER: Lathlean JA

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4816446 | biostudies-literature | 2016

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Cheating the Locals: Invasive Mussels Steal and Benefit from the Cooling Effect of Indigenous Mussels.

Lathlean Justin A JA Seuront Laurent L McQuaid Christopher D CD Ng Terence P T TP Zardi Gerardo I GI Nicastro Katy R KR

PloS one 20160331 3

The indigenous South African mussel Perna perna gapes during periods of aerial exposure to maintain aerobic respiration. This behaviour has no effect on the body temperatures of isolated individuals, but when surrounded by conspecifics, beneficial cooling effects of gaping emerge. It is uncertain, however, whether the presence of the invasive mussel Mytilus galloprovincialis limits the ability of P. perna for collective thermoregulation. We investigated whether varying densities of P. perna and ...[more]

PMID: 27030975

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Project description:The invasive marine mussel Mytilus galloprovincialis has displaced the native congener Mytilus trossulus from central and southern California, but the native species remains dominant at more northerly sites that have high levels of freshwater input. To determine the extent to which interspecific differences in physiological tolerance to low salinity might explain limits to the invasive species’ biogeography, we used an oligonucleotide microarray to compare the transcriptional responses of these two species to an acute decrease in salinity. Among 6,777 genes on the microarray, 117 genes showed significant changes that were similar between species, and 12 genes showed significant species-specific responses to salinity stress. Osmoregulation and cell cycle control were important aspects of the shared transcriptomic response to salinity stress, whereas the genes with species-specific expression patterns were involved in mRNA splicing, polyamine synthesis, exocytosis, translation, cell adhesion, and cell signaling. Forty-five genes that changed expression significantly during salinity stress also changed expression during heat stress, but the direction of change in expression was typically opposite for the two forms of stress. These results (i) provide insights into the role of changes in gene expression in establishing physiological tolerance to acute decreases in salinity, and (ii) indicate that transcriptomic differences between M. galloprovincialis and M. trossulus in response to salinity stress are subtle and involve only a minor fraction of the overall suite of gene regulatory responses. Two species (Mytilus galloprovincialis, Mytilus trossulus), hypo-osmotic shock for four hours (850 mOs/kg), one control group (1000 mOs/kg) sampled at the end of the treatment exposure (850 mOs/kg), one control group (1000 mOs/kg) sampled at the beginning. Biological replicates: 6 in each treatment group, 6 in each control group. Heterologous and homologous hybridization to a microarray constructed from Mytilus californianus and Mytilus galloprovincialis sequences. A reference design that used separate pools of reference RNA for each species was employed. Reference amplified RNA (aRNA) was created for each species by pooling RNA before and after amplification. The reference pool was made up of RNA from six different samples: two base-line control samples from the beginning of the experiment, two treatment samples from the end of the four-hour hypo-osmotic exposure, and two time-control samples from the end of the four-hour exposure time. To accurately compare the transcriptomes of Mytilus galloprovincialis and M. trossulus, we chose to develop a common microarray format that could be used for both species. This microarray design consisted of probe sequences generated from the out-group species, M. californianus. M. trossulus and M. galloprovincialis are approximately 7.5 million years divergent from M. californianus, yet only 3.5 million years divergent from each other (Seed, 1992). Therefore, heterologous hybridization to the microarray allowed us to compare transcriptional responses of M. galloprovincialis and M. trossulus without the inherent sequence biases that would result from a microarray that was designed from sequences of either M. galloprovincialis or M. trossulus. A limited number of sequences (556) from ESTs from M. galloprovincialis that matched M. californianus ESTs were included on the microarray to test for the effects of sequence mismatches. Only probes that performed well for both M. galloprovincialis and M. trossulus were used in our analyses. In order to determine significant changes in expression, we conducted a two-way ANOVA, in which salinity and species were modeled as fixed effects, and focused on genes that were significant for the salinity effect or the species x temperature interaction. We ignored the species term from the ANOVA as this effect could have highlighted genes that differentially bound to probes on the microarray due to differences in sequence homology, thus not reflecting true differences in gene expression. In accordance with statistical convention, all genes with a significant species x temperature interaction were deemed not to have significant temperature effects, even if the temperature term from the ANOVA had a low P-value. All genes with FDR-corrected (Benjamini and Hochberg, 1995) P-values less than 0.05 were considered significant. Analyses were conducted in the R statistical programming environment (R Development Core Team, 2009).

Dataset Information

Cheating the Locals: Invasive Mussels Steal and Benefit from the Cooling Effect of Indigenous Mussels.

Publications

Cheating the Locals: Invasive Mussels Steal and Benefit from the Cooling Effect of Indigenous Mussels.

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