Main Drivers of Fecundity Variability of Mussels along a Latitudinal Gradient: Lessons to Apply for Future Climate Change Scenarios

Gabriela F Oliveira,Laura G Peteiro,Hanifah Siregar,Henrique Queiroga

doi:10.3390/jmse9070759

Abstract

Bivalve relevance for ecosystem functioning and human food security emphasize the importance of predictions of mussel performance under different climate stressors. Here, we address the effect of a latitudinal gradient of temperature and food availability on the fecundity of the Mediterranean mussel to try to better parameterize environmental forcing over reproductive output. We show that temperature plays a major role, acting as a switching on–off mechanism for gametogenesis, while food availability has a lower influence but also modulates the number of gametes produced. Temperature and food availability also show different effects over fecundity depending on the temporal scale evaluated. Our results support the view that the gametogenesis responds non-linearly with temperature and chlorophyll concentration, an issue that is largely overlooked in growth, production and energy budgets of bivalve populations, leading to predictive models that can overestimate the capability of the mussel’s populations to deal with climate change future scenarios.

Highlights

The accumulation of evidence on climate change impact on marine ecosystems increasingly points towards complex cascading effects at different levels of biological organization [1,2,3,4,5]
(77.7 to 86.5% of deviance explained by the variables location and day of the year; Seasonality largely explained the variability observed in temperature and salinity Table 1, Figure 2)
Temperature latitudinal gradients are usually explored to understand the effects of thermal stress on marine invertebrates and to try to predict the subsequent impacts of Temperature latitudinal gradients are usually explored to understand the effects of future climate change scenarios over their distribution and population dynamics thermal stress Our on marine invertebrates and to try to predict the subsequent impacts of a latitudinal study explores the reproductive output of mussel populations along future climate gradient change scenarios over Atlantic their distribution andofpopulation dynamics [21,40

Summary

Introduction

The accumulation of evidence on climate change impact on marine ecosystems increasingly points towards complex cascading effects at different levels of biological organization [1,2,3,4,5]. A commonly employed approach is to couple population and climate models to test for the effect of different climate scenarios on species distribution, performance or productivity [3,7,8,9] Many of these studies agree to identify reef forming calcified organisms (corals, mussels, oysters, etc.) as one of the most vulnerable, because of their particular sensitivity to ocean acidification and other cascading effects related to the rising temperatures [1,3,10]. The large vulnerability of bivalves coupled to their relevance for food security emphasizes the importance of accurate predictions of mussel performance under different climate change scenarios, and has prompted the use of this species as a model for the study of the impact of several stressors [16,17,18,19]

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Conclusion