Ocean acidification promotes otolith growth and calcite deposition in gilthead sea bream (Sparus aurata) larvae

The effects of ocean acidification on otolith crystallization and growth rates were investigated in gilthead sea bream (Sparus aurata) larvae. Larvae were exposed to three different pH levels: pH8.2, pH7.7 and pH7.3 for a period of 18 days post-fertilization. For the first time, we demonstrate that pH has a significant impact on the carbonate polymorph composition, showing calcite in a significant percentage of individuals at low pH. Around 21% of the larvae exposed to pH7.3 showed irregular calcitic otoliths rather than commonly found round aragonitic otoliths. Calcitic otoliths showed a moderate level of heritability suggesting an important role of genetic factors. We also observed significantly larger otoliths in larvae reared at pH7.7 and pH7.3 compared to pH8.2 in both sagittae and lapilli. Our results demonstrate that otolith growth rates in gilthead sea bream larvae increase at low pH while a significant proportion of larvae are prone to the formation of calcitic otoliths at pH7.3.

Citation

Coll-Lladó , C , Giebichenstein , J , Webb , P B , Bridges , C R & Garcia de la Serrana , D 2018 , ' Ocean acidification promotes otolith growth and calcite deposition in gilthead sea bream ( Sparus aurata ) larvae ' , Scientific Reports , vol. 8 , 8384 . https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-018-26026-y

Publication

Scientific Reports

Status

Peer reviewed

DOI

https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-018-26026-y

ISSN

2045-2322

Type

Journal article

Rights

© The Author(s) 2018. Open Access. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Description

This work received funding from the Marine Alliance for Science and Technology for Scotland (MASTS) Small Grant initiative (SG330 and SG407). MASTS is funded by the Scottish Funding Council (grant reference HR09011) and contributing institutions. PBW would like to thank the Royal Society for the award of an Industry Fellowship. Financial support to CRB and JG were through the BIOACID (Biological Impacts of Ocean Acidification; Phase II) research programme.

Collections

University of St Andrews Research

URI

http://hdl.handle.net/10023/13633