Population trajectories for the Antarctic bivalve Laternula

Details of Research

TitlePopulation trajectories for the Antarctic bivalve Laternula elliptica: Identifying demographic bottlenecks in differing environmental futuresAbstractThe world's oceans are changing, and dramatic shifts have been documented in the Southern Ocean. The consequences of these shifts to coastal benthic organisms are difficult to predict at present, as ocean warming may increase primary production and food resources for benthic consumers, whilst OA may have negative impacts that differentially affect various species and life stages. A model was developed to investigate how different scenarios of change may influence population size of the Antarctic bivalve Laternula elliptica. The model describes potential implications of both pH and temperature change on survivorship and reproductive output of a population of this bivalve species in McMurdo Sound, Ross Sea. Implications of increases and decreases in mortality rate across different life stages of the population (early, mid and late) were assessed. Additionally, effects on energetic resource partitioning and dictating reproductive potential (RP) were also investigated. Significant declines in RP, due to increased basal metabolic demand, were associated with even relatively small changes in temperature and pH, resulting in populations declining to 25% of the starting equilibrium density within 60 years. As L. elliptica is a pivotal species to the functionality of the Antarctic coastal benthic ecosystem, wide spread repercussions are expected if populations are impacted as the model predicts. Although further model development is required to explore the ecosystem implications of the population decline described in this paper, this work allows a better understanding of the consequences of change as soon as data on the direction and magnitude of the changes affecting Antarctic seas become available. ©Copyright 2014 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.AcknowledgementsThis research was supported by an Antarctica New Zealand/Air New Zealand post doctoral fellowship to C.G and NIWA capability fund to V.C. In addition, thanks go to Victoria Metcalf, Lincoln University, NZ, for making the respiration measurements in the L. elliptica pH experiment and Kay Steinkamp, NIWA, for his help with the production of contour plots. S. Schiaparelli and an anonymous reviewer are thanked for their helpful comments, which improved the manuscript.

Details

1st AuthorGuy, C.AuthorGuy, C.Cummings, V.Lohrer, A.Gamito, S.Thrush, S.Year2014JournalPolar BiologyVolume37Number4Pages541-553DOI10.1007/s00300-014-1456-3Keywordsbivalvecoastal zonemortalitypopulation declinepopulation modelingpopulation sizepopulation structurereproductive potentialsurvivorship, Ross SeaSouthern Ocean, BivalviaLaternula elliptica, rank5Author KeywordsAntarcticaEcosystem modellingLaternula ellipticaOcean acidificationOcean warming

Other

TypeArticleCitationGuy, C., Cummings, V., Lohrer, A., Gamito, S. and Thrush, S. (2014). Population trajectories for the Antarctic bivalve Laternula elliptica: Identifying demographic bottlenecks in differing environmental futures. Polar Biology, 37(4): 541-553