Cargando…
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...
Autores principales: | , |
---|---|
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 |
_version_ | 1783686535334330368 |
---|---|
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. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-8086578 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2021 |
publisher | PeerJ Inc. |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
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 |
work_keys_str_mv | AT smithjoshuag variationinpurpleseaurchinstrongylocentrotuspurpuratusmorphologicaltraitsinrelationtoresourceavailability AT garciasabrinac variationinpurpleseaurchinstrongylocentrotuspurpuratusmorphologicaltraitsinrelationtoresourceavailability |