Abstract
Ocean warming (OW) and acidification (OA) are key features of global change and are predicted to have negative consequences for marine species and ecosystems. At a smaller scale increasing oil and gas activities at northern high latitudes could lead to greater risk of petroleum pollution, potentially exacerbating the effects of such global stressors. However, knowledge of combined effects is limited. This study employed a scenario-based, collapsed design to investigate the impact of one local acute stressor (North Sea crude oil) and two chronic global drivers (pH for OA and temperature for OW), alone or in combination on aspects of the biology of larval stages of two key invertebrates: the northern shrimp (Pandalus borealis) and the green sea urchin (Strongylocentrotus droebachiensis). Both local and global drivers had negative effects on survival, development and growth of the larval stages. These effects were species- and stage-dependent. No statistical interactions were observed between local and global drivers and the combined effects of the two drivers were approximately equal to the sum of their separate effects. This study highlights the importance of adjusting regulation associated with oil spill prevention to maximize the resilience of marine organisms to predicted future global conditions.
Highlights
Humans are impacting life in the ocean in multiple ways[1]
We investigated the combined effect of global drivers (OA: ÎpH = â0.5 and Ocean warming (OW): Îtemp = +3 °C) and a mechanically-dispersed crude oil exposure (0.5 mg Lâ1 nominal oil concentration) simulating the mechanical actions of waves on oil following a spill
No significant effects of OA, oil alone (Oil) or their interaction were detected for metabolic rate, which increased linearly with body length (BL) (Fig. 1f, Table 1 and Table S4). Both shrimp and urchin larvae were negatively impacted by OA and OAW drivers resulting in decreased growth, suggesting a trade-off between energy requirements for maintenance activities and for growth as has been shown before[14,15,21,22,23,24]
Summary
Humans are impacting life in the ocean in multiple ways[1]. Anthropogenic impacts can be both global and local. Some recent studies suggest that change in energy balance is a key factor in determining stress tolerance limits of an organism and that increased energy costs can directly translate into population- and ecosystem-level consequences[14]. Both OA and OW have been shown to alter energy budget, metabolism and growth in many marine organisms including sea urchin and shrimp larvae[16,17]. Our working hypothesis was that while exposure to global (OA/OW) and local (North Sea crude oil) drivers individually would significantly negatively affect larval early developmental stages, combined exposure would lead to a more severe impact than observed for single drivers. We hypothesized that the effects of both the global drivers (OA and OA and OW combined (OAW)) and local driver (Oil) can be explained by an alteration of the individualâs energy budget: OA/OAW by increasing costs to maintain homeostasis; oil through a narcotic effect
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