Abstract
The juveniles of gnathiid isopods are one of the most common fish ectoparasites in marine habitats and cause deleterious effects on fish by feeding on host blood and lymph. Reef fishes tend to engage in cooperative interactions with cleaning organisms to reduce their ectoparasite load. Ocean acidification (OA) pose multiple threats to marine life. Recently, OA was found to disrupt cleaner fish behaviour in mutualistic cleaning interactions. However, the potential effects of ocean acidification on this common ectoparasite remains unknown. Here, we test if exposure to an acidification scenario predicted by IPCC to the end of the century (RCP 8.5 – 980 μatm pCO2) affects gnathiid survival. Our results show that ocean acidification did not have any effects on gnathiid survival rate during all three juvenile life stages. Thus, we advocate that the need for cleaning interactions will persist in potentially acidified coral reefs. Nevertheless, to better understand gnathiid resilience to ocean acidification, future studies are needed to evaluate ocean acidification impacts on gnathiid reproduction and physiology as well as host-parasite interactions.
Highlights
Human-induced environmental changes currently represent the single greatest threat to global diversity
ocean acidification (OA) has the potential to reduce the abundance of demersal zooplankton that reside in tropical coral reefs [6]
In our study, we did not observe an effect of OA on the short-term survival of the gnathiid G. aureamaculosa, an organism that forms part of the tropical reef demersal zooplankton community
Summary
Human-induced environmental changes currently represent the single greatest threat to global diversity. 30% of the anthropologically emitted CO2 is being dissolved into the ocean, which has decreased seawater pH by 0.1 units during the last decade [1]. The increased concentration of hydrogen ions can interact with carbonate ions (CO3 2- ) to form more bicarbonate, reducing the saturation of seawater aragonite and calcite, crucial for shells and skeletons of marine organisms. This phenomenon, known as ocean acidification (OA), is projected to decrease seawater pH between 0.14–0.42 units by the end of this century [1,2]
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