Reproductive cycle of the sea urchinParacentrotus lividusin the Cantabrian Sea (northern Spain): environmental effects

Abstract

The main objective of this study was to describe the reproductive cycle of the sea urchin Paracentrotus lividus on the Cantabrian coast (north of Spain), and assess its relationship with environmental factors. To achieve this, samples were taken monthly from three localities during 17 months in two different habitats. At least 15 individuals from each location and habitat were collected during each sampling occasion and used for assessments of gonad index and histological sections. The water temperature and the chlorophyll concentration were also measured. The breeding season of P. lividus in Cantabria started in March and continued until September with one or two main spawning periods per year (depending on year and population), the first one in the beginning of spring and the second one in the summer. The most important differences in the gonad cycle were observed among localities, and the smallest among habitats. Temperature, photoperiod and nutritive stage are important factors controlling the gonad cycle. The beginning of spawning in the Cantabrian populations coincides with the spring phytoplankton bloom and the rise in temperature, which may act as environmental triggers.

Reproductive cycle of the commercially harvested sea urchin (Paracentrotus lividus) along the western coast of Portugal

“…() and González‐Irusta, Goñi de Cerio, and Canteras () reported that gamete development started in winter and stopped in summer, suggesting a relationship between photoperiod and gametogenesis. Similarly, a single annual spawning episode in P. lividus during spring–summer was also observed in other populations from Portugal (Gago et al., ), Spain (González‐Irusta et al., ), France (Allain, ; Spirlet, Grosjean, & Jangoux, ), and Morocco (Bayed, Quiniou, Benrha, & Guillou, ), whereas shorter periods of gamete release in spring were recorded at other locations in Spain (Garmendia et al., ; Ouréns et al., ). Unlike the other Atlantic populations, sea urchins from Ireland spawned once at the end of summer (Byrne, ) or twice in spring and autumn (Crapp & Willis, ; Table ).…”

“…For instance, several factors are responsible for variation in gamete induction in sea urchins, namely hydrodynamics (Soualili, ), turbulence (Pedrotti, ; Soualili, ), depth, photoperiod, temperature, habitat, food availability and quality (e.g. Gago et al., ; González‐Irusta et al., ; Ouréns et al., ; Spirlet et al., ), primary production and phytoplankton blooms (González‐Irusta et al., ; López et al., ; Starr, Himmelman, & Therriault, ), and population density (Ouréns et al., ). Moreover, because P. lividus is characterized as an opportunistic generalist, there is a wide range of adaptive and reproductive responses to environmental conditions throughout the species’ distributional range (Boudouresque & Verlaque, ; González‐Irusta et al., ).…”

Relationships between algal food and gut and gonad conditions in the Mediterranean sea urchin Paracentrotus lividus (Lam.)

“…According to these authors, the variations observed from one locality to another in the time the GI reaches its annual maximum, are related more or less directly with the availability of food as indicated by Lawrence & Lane (1982). Differences in GI between locations are often observed (González-Irusta et al, 2010) and are also related to other factors such as farm effluents and organic pollution (Allain, 1975;Delmas & Régis, 1986;Cook & Kelly, 2007), temperature (Byrne, 1990), phytoplankton blooms (Lozano et al, 1995;Bayed et al, 2005) and salinity and contamination by heavy metals (Bayed et al, 2005). Considering the relationship with the availability of algal resources, we can compare the annual evolution of GI and RI.…”

“…The gastrointestinal (gut) index relates the digestive system weight to the total wet body weight of the individual, indicating what proportion of this total weight is due to the gut (GII = wet weight of gut x 100/ wet body weight) and the repletion index (RI = wet weight of gut content x 100/ wet body weight) as has been used by Guillou & Michel (1994) and Privitera et al (2008). To assess gonadal condition we calculated the gonadosomatic (gonad) index (GI = wet weight of gonads x 100/ wet body weight), the usual approach adopted in other studies reported in the literature (Guettaf & San Martín, 1995;Sánchez-España et al, 2004;González-Irusta et al, 2010).…”

“…It seems that habitat characteristics (Byrne, 1990), hydrodynamic conditions (Sellem & Guillou, 2007), seawater temperature (Byrne, 1990;Bayed et al, 2005;González-Irusta et al, 2010), algal production (Bayed et al, 2005), food availability (Guidetti et al, 2003;Sánchez-España et al, 2004), phytoplankton bloom (Lozano et al, 1995;Bayed et al, 2005;González-Irusta et al, 2010) and photoperiod (González-Irusta et al, 2010) are of particular importance.…”