Lipid consumption in coral larvae differs among sites: a consideration of environmental history in a global ocean change scenario

Abstract

The success of early life-history stages is an environmentally sensitive bottleneck for many marine invertebrates. Responses of larvae to environmental stress may vary due to differences in maternal investment of energy stores and acclimatization/adaptation of a population to local environmental conditions. In this study, we compared two populations from sites with different environmental regimes (Moorea and Taiwan). We assessed the responses of larvae to two future co-occurring environmental stressors: elevated temperature and ocean acidification. Larvae from Taiwan were more sensitive to temperature, producing fewer energy-storage lipids under high temperature. In general, planulae in Moorea and Taiwan responded similarly toCO Additionally, corals in the study sites with different environments produced larvae with different initial traits, which may have shaped the different physiological responses observed. Notably, under ambient conditions, planulae in Taiwan increased their stores of wax ester and triacylglycerol in general over the first 24 h of their dispersal, whereas planulae from Moorea consumed energy-storage lipids in all cases. Comparisons of physiological responses of larvae to conditions of ocean acidification and warming between sites across the species' biogeographic range illuminates the variety of physiological responses maintained within, which may enhance the overall persistence of this species in the light of global climate change.

Feeding increases the number of offspring but decreases parental investment of Red Sea coral Stylophora pistillata

“…Parental diet did however significantly alter total fatty acid concentration per planulae; U planulae had significantly higher total lipid concentration of 26.7 ± 5.1 µg FA/planula (30.0 ± 2.4% DW as FA) compared to 10.4 ± 3.1 µg FA/planula for F planulae (18.1 ± 0.4% DW as FA). These values fall close to the range of previously published concentrations of 12.5–91.5 µg total lipid/planula from P. damicornis (Harii et al, ; Rivest, Chen, Fan, Li, & Hofmann, ; Rivest & Hofmann, ), which produce relatively large brooded planulae and also on the lower side of the percentage of DW range (27.4%–35.5%) reported from four species of Australian Acropora (Conlan, Humphrey, Severati, & Francis, ). Lipids are typically associated with metabolic energy, growth, membrane structure, reproduction, and immune functions.…”

Physiological Characteristics of Stylophora pistillata Larvae Across a Depth Gradient

“…Although energetic content of the larvae was not addressed in this study, comparisons between parental depth and the amount of maternally derived lipids within the resulting larvae that are used as endogenous source of energy may further elucidate the role of light availability on larval size (Woodley et al, 2015;Rivest et al, 2017). Differences in the density of Symbiodinacaea cells and chlorophyll concentrations within larvae can also affect the amount of translocated metabolites from the symbiotic algae, which can act as a significant sources of energy for coral larvae (Richmond, 1987;Harii et al, 2010).…”

Connecting organic to mineral: How the physiological state of an ecosystem-engineer is linked to its habitat structure

“…Certain aspects of the health of tropical coral reef polyps have made use of biochemical markers, by assessing the size of energy stores (as lipid content) as a proxy for physiological condition (Anthony, 2006) or by using CS and energy-storage lipids to see how scleractinian coral larvae respond to ocean acidification and warming (Rivest and Hoffmann 2014;Rivest et al, 2017). However, none of these studies made a link between the coral polyps and their calcareous skeleton.…”

“…Carbohydrates and neutral lipids constitute major energy reserves for fuelling growth, reproduction, and defence against stressors in many marine invertebrates (e.g. Gallager et al, 1986;Berthelin et al, 2000;Rivest et al, 2017). Glycogen is the primary polysaccharide (polymeric carbohydrate) in annelids (Scheer, 1969) and has long been recognised as the principal energy reserve in juvenile and adult bivalves (Lucas and Beninger, 1985).…”