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Does sex really matter? Explaining intraspecies variation in ocean acidification responses.

ABSTRACT: Ocean acidification (OA) poses a major threat to marine ecosystems globally, having significant ecological and economic importance. The number and complexity of experiments examining the effects of OA has substantially increased over the past decade, in an attempt to address multi-stressor interactions and long-term responses in an increasing range of aquatic organisms. However, differences in the response of males and females to elevated pCO2 have been investigated in fewer than 4% of studies to date, often being precluded by the difficulty of determining sex non-destructively, particularly in early life stages. Here we highlight that sex can significantly impact organism responses to OA, differentially affecting physiology, reproduction, biochemistry and ultimately survival. What is more, these impacts do not always conform to ecological theory based on differential resource allocation towards reproduction, which would predict females to be more sensitive to OA owing to the higher production cost of eggs compared with sperm. Therefore, non-sex-specific studies may overlook subtle but ecologically significant differences in the responses of males and females to OA, with consequences for forecasting the fate of natural populations in a near-future ocean.

SUBMITTER: Ellis RP

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5326506 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Does sex really matter? Explaining intraspecies variation in ocean acidification responses.

Ellis Robert P RP Davison William W Queirós Ana M AM Kroeker Kristy J KJ Calosi Piero P Dupont Sam S Spicer John I JI Wilson Rod W RW Widdicombe Steve S Urbina Mauricio A MA

Biology letters 20170201 2

Ocean acidification (OA) poses a major threat to marine ecosystems globally, having significant ecological and economic importance. The number and complexity of experiments examining the effects of OA has substantially increased over the past decade, in an attempt to address multi-stressor interactions and long-term responses in an increasing range of aquatic organisms. However, differences in the response of males and females to elevated pCO<sub>2</sub> have been investigated in fewer than 4% o ...[more]

PMID: 28148830

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Project description:Ocean acidification due to rising atmospheric CO2 is expected to affect the physiology of important calcifying marine organisms, but the nature and magnitude of change is yet to be established. In coccolithophores, different species and strains display varying calcification responses to ocean acidification, but the underlying biochemical properties remain unknown. We employed an approach combining tandem mass-spectrometry with isobaric tagging (iTRAQ) and multiple database searching to identify proteins that were differentially expressed in cells of the marine coccolithophore species Emiliania huxleyi (strain NZEH) between two CO2 conditions: 395 (?current day) and ?1340 p.p.m.v. CO2. Cells exposed to the higher CO2 condition contained more cellular particulate inorganic carbon (CaCO3) and particulate organic nitrogen and carbon than those maintained in present-day conditions. These results are linked with the observation that cells grew slower under elevated CO2, indicating cell cycle disruption. Under high CO2 conditions, coccospheres were larger and cells possessed bigger coccoliths that did not show any signs of malformation compared to those from cells grown under present-day CO2 levels. No differences in calcification rate, particulate organic carbon production or cellular organic carbon: nitrogen ratios were observed. Results were not related to nutrient limitation or acclimation status of cells. At least 46 homologous protein groups from a variety of functional processes were quantified in these experiments, of which four (histones H2A, H3, H4 and a chloroplastic 30S ribosomal protein S7) showed down-regulation in all replicates exposed to high CO2, perhaps reflecting the decrease in growth rate. We present evidence of cellular stress responses but proteins associated with many key metabolic processes remained unaltered. Our results therefore suggest that this E. huxleyi strain possesses some acclimation mechanisms to tolerate future CO2 scenarios, although the observed decline in growth rate may be an overriding factor affecting the success of this ecotype in future oceans.

Dataset Information

Does sex really matter? Explaining intraspecies variation in ocean acidification responses.

Publications

Does sex really matter? Explaining intraspecies variation in ocean acidification responses.

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