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Variation in purple sea urchin (Strongylocentrotus purpuratus) morphological traits in relation to resource availability

Flexible resource investment is a risk sensitive reproductive strategy where individuals trade resources spent on reproduction for basic metabolic maintenance and survival. This study examined morphological variation in herbivorous sea urchin grazers across a mosaic landscape of macroalgae dominated...

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Autores principales: Smith, Joshua G., Garcia, Sabrina C.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: PeerJ Inc. 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8086578/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33987021
http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.11352
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author Smith, Joshua G.
Garcia, Sabrina C.
author_facet Smith, Joshua G.
Garcia, Sabrina C.
author_sort Smith, Joshua G.
collection PubMed
description Flexible resource investment is a risk sensitive reproductive strategy where individuals trade resources spent on reproduction for basic metabolic maintenance and survival. This study examined morphological variation in herbivorous sea urchin grazers across a mosaic landscape of macroalgae dominated habitats interspersed with patches of sea urchin barrens to determine whether sea urchins shift energy allocation in response to food limitation. Extensive underwater surveys of habitat attributes (e.g., sea urchin density, algae cover) were paired with detailed laboratory assays (e.g., sea urchin dissections) to determine how resource abundance affects energy allocation between reproductive capacity and body structure in the purple sea urchin, Strongylocentrotus purpuratus. We found that: (1) sea urchins had a more elongate jaw structure relative to body size in habitats void of macroalgae (i.e., barrens), (2) sea urchin reproductive capacity (i.e., gonad index) was lower in barrens and the barrens habitat was primarily comprised of encrusting algae, and (3) sea urchin jaw morphology (i.e., lantern index) and reproductive capacity (i.e., gonad index) were inversely related. These results suggest that sea urchins respond to macroalgae limited environments by shifting energy allocation between reproductive capacity and modifications of the foraging apparatus, which may explain the ability of sea urchins to acquire food in resource-limited environments.
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spelling pubmed-80865782021-05-12 Variation in purple sea urchin (Strongylocentrotus purpuratus) morphological traits in relation to resource availability Smith, Joshua G. Garcia, Sabrina C. PeerJ Ecology Flexible resource investment is a risk sensitive reproductive strategy where individuals trade resources spent on reproduction for basic metabolic maintenance and survival. This study examined morphological variation in herbivorous sea urchin grazers across a mosaic landscape of macroalgae dominated habitats interspersed with patches of sea urchin barrens to determine whether sea urchins shift energy allocation in response to food limitation. Extensive underwater surveys of habitat attributes (e.g., sea urchin density, algae cover) were paired with detailed laboratory assays (e.g., sea urchin dissections) to determine how resource abundance affects energy allocation between reproductive capacity and body structure in the purple sea urchin, Strongylocentrotus purpuratus. We found that: (1) sea urchins had a more elongate jaw structure relative to body size in habitats void of macroalgae (i.e., barrens), (2) sea urchin reproductive capacity (i.e., gonad index) was lower in barrens and the barrens habitat was primarily comprised of encrusting algae, and (3) sea urchin jaw morphology (i.e., lantern index) and reproductive capacity (i.e., gonad index) were inversely related. These results suggest that sea urchins respond to macroalgae limited environments by shifting energy allocation between reproductive capacity and modifications of the foraging apparatus, which may explain the ability of sea urchins to acquire food in resource-limited environments. PeerJ Inc. 2021-04-27 /pmc/articles/PMC8086578/ /pubmed/33987021 http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.11352 Text en © 2021 Smith and Garcia https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, reproduction and adaptation in any medium and for any purpose provided that it is properly attributed. For attribution, the original author(s), title, publication source (PeerJ) and either DOI or URL of the article must be cited.
spellingShingle Ecology
Smith, Joshua G.
Garcia, Sabrina C.
Variation in purple sea urchin (Strongylocentrotus purpuratus) morphological traits in relation to resource availability
title Variation in purple sea urchin (Strongylocentrotus purpuratus) morphological traits in relation to resource availability
title_full Variation in purple sea urchin (Strongylocentrotus purpuratus) morphological traits in relation to resource availability
title_fullStr Variation in purple sea urchin (Strongylocentrotus purpuratus) morphological traits in relation to resource availability
title_full_unstemmed Variation in purple sea urchin (Strongylocentrotus purpuratus) morphological traits in relation to resource availability
title_short Variation in purple sea urchin (Strongylocentrotus purpuratus) morphological traits in relation to resource availability
title_sort variation in purple sea urchin (strongylocentrotus purpuratus) morphological traits in relation to resource availability
topic Ecology
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8086578/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33987021
http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.11352
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