Deep resilience: An evolutionary perspective on calcification in an age of ocean acidification

Abstract

The success of today’s calcifying organisms in tomorrow’s oceans depends, in part, on the resilience of their skeletons to ocean acidification. To the extent this statement is true there is reason to have hope. Many marine calcifiers demonstrate resilience when exposed to environments that mimic near-term ocean acidification. The fossil record similarly suggests that resilience in skeletons has increased dramatically over geologic time. This “deep resilience” is seen in the long-term stability of skeletal chemistry, as well as a decreasing correlation between skeletal mineralogy and extinction risk over time. Such resilience over geologic timescales is often attributed to genetic canalization—the hardening of genetic pathways due to the evolution of increasingly complex regulatory systems. But paradoxically, our current knowledge on biomineralization genetics suggests an opposing trend, where genes are co-opted and shuffled at an evolutionarily rapid pace. In this paper we consider two possible mechanisms driving deep resilience in skeletons that fall outside of genetic canalization: microbial co-regulation and macroevolutionary trends in skeleton structure. The mechanisms driving deep resilience should be considered when creating risk assessments for marine organisms facing ocean acidification and provide a wealth of research avenues to explore.

A Novel Approach to Comparative RNA-Seq Does Not Support a Conserved Set of Orthologs Underlying Animal Regeneration

“…In the chicken study cited earlier ( Lan et al 2016 ), only 9 out of 753 differentially expressed genes were conserved between all three lines (in our analysis, we combined deCOGs from all three breeds into one “chicken” data set). Similar problems in identifying conserved genes have been discussed in other biological processes, such as animal biomineralization ( Gold and Vermeij 2023 ). Given these results, we are inclined to argue that the inability to identify conserved orthologs is a general problem in comparative RNA-Seq studies, compounded with increasing phylogenetic distance.…”

Conservation biology and conservation paleobiology meet the Anthropocene together: history matters

“…We also need to promote and support a Conservation Biology and Paleobiology Corps (like the Peace Corp of the 1960s and the CCC of the 1930s) that connect researchers from all over the world to work on conservation efforts using the coupled modern and fossil record. Finally, we also need to examine Earth's fossil biota from a resilience perspective in the face of environmental change (Gold and Vermeij, 2023), and therein lies hope for a sustainable future for Planet Earth.…”

“…We have passed our carrying capacity for Earth (Barrett and Odum, 2000) and are now facing the consequences of our runaway population and resource use (Ehrlich and Ehrlich, 2009;Barnovsky et al, 2012;Forman and Wu, 2016). Although we created a "Used Planet", there are areas of recovery and resilience (Ellis et al, 2013;Morikawa and Palumbi, 2019;Gold and Vermeij, 2023;Schug et al, 2023). Recovery and resilience is what science needs to focus on with all hands on deck, melding all conservation efforts from bio-, geo-, paleo-and archaeological realms.…”