Meeting Abstract
In addition to warmer ocean temperatures, increased atmospheric carbon dioxide emissions are causing reductions in seawater pH, termed ocean acidification. Here, we conducted a controlled laboratory experiment to investigate the effect of pH stress (pH 8.0, 7.6, 7.5) across two life stages of the common slipper shell snail Crepidula fornicata, an abundant and resilient species native to the littoral zones of Eastern North America. Shell and tissue growth rates were measured in 4 and 8 day old larvae and in juveniles 4 days after metamorphosis. The percentage of larvae that had become competent to metamorphose under the different pH rearing conditions was quantified on days 10 and 12. Genome-wide gene expression was profiled and correlated with these physiological data across all treatments and time points. We show that larvae exposed to pH 7.6 developed significantly less tissue relative to larvae exposed to pH 8.0. Larvae reared at lower pH (7.6 and 7.5) took longer to become competent to metamorphose, and gene expression data showed significantly different profiles across life stages and between treatments. This study highlights the importance of assessing the influence of ocean acidification across life history stages and demonstrates how transcriptomic plasticity can allow highly resilient organisms like C. fornicata to acclimate to drastically altered environmental conditions in the face of climate change.
