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Digestion in sea urchin larvae impaired under ocean acidification

Nature Climate Change volume 3, pages 1044–1049 (2013)Cite this article

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Abstract

Larval stages are considered as the weakest link when a species is exposed to challenging environmental changes1,2. Reduced rates of growth and development in larval stages of calcifying invertebrates in response to ocean acidification might be caused by energetic limitations3. So far no information exists on how ocean acidification affects digestive processes in marine larval stages. Here we reveal alkaline (∼pH 9.5) conditions in the stomach of sea urchin larvae. Larvae exposed to decreased seawater pH suffer from a drop in gastric pH, which directly translates into decreased digestive efficiencies and triggers compensatory feeding. These results suggest that larval digestion represents a critical process in the context of ocean acidification, which has been overlooked so far.

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Figure 1: Effects of acidified sea water on gastric pH homeostasis.
Figure 2: Characterization of proteases in sea urchin larvae raised at pH 8.1.
Figure 3: In vivo digestion of sea urchin pluteus larvae exposed to different pH treatments.
Figure 4: Comparison of total protease activity in larvae cultured under different pH conditions.

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Acknowledgements

The authors are grateful to N. Dorey and E. Butera for their help with the larval culture. M.H. has received financial support from the European Community’s Seventh Framework Programme FP7/2007–2013 under grant agreement no 265847 and an Alexander von Humboldt fellowship. M.S. was financially supported by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences (Kungliga Vetenskapsakademien). F.M. and M.B. were supported by the Excellence Cluster Future Ocean and the German Ocean Acidification programme BIOACID. I.C. and S.D. were financially supported by the Linnaeus Centre for Marine Evolutionary Biology at the University of Gothenburg (http://www.cemeb.science.gu.se/) and supported by a Linnaeus grant from the Swedish Research Councils VR and Formas.

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Author notes

  1. Meike Stumpp and Marian Hu: These authors contributed equally to this work

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biological and Environmental Sciences, University of Gothenburg, The Sven Lovén Centre for Marine Sciences, Kristineberg 45178 Fiskebäckskil, Sweden

    Meike Stumpp, Marian Hu, Isabel Casties & Sam Dupont

  2. Institute of Physiology, Christian Albrechts University Kiel, 24098 Kiel, Germany

    Meike Stumpp, Marian Hu & Markus Bleich

  3. Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel (GEOMAR), 24105 Kiel, Germany

    Meike Stumpp, Marian Hu & Frank Melzner

  4. Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research, Functional Ecology, 27515 Bremerhaven, Germany

    Reinhard Saborowski

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  1. Meike Stumpp
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Contributions

M.S., M.H. and S.D. designed the study, conducted experiments, analysed the data and compiled the manuscript with the help of all other co-authors. R.S. contributed to enzyme characterizations. I.C. collected samples and performed the culture experiments including seawater chemistry analyses. M.B. and F.M. supported the planning operations for micro-electrode measurements and larval cultures.

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Correspondence to Sam Dupont.

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The authors declare no competing financial interests.

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Stumpp, M., Hu, M., Casties, I. et al. Digestion in sea urchin larvae impaired under ocean acidification. Nature Clim Change 3, 1044–1049 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1038/nclimate2028

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