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Ocean acidification causes no detectable effect on swimming activity and body size in a common copepod

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Abstract

Ocean acidification can impair an animal’s physiological performance and energetically demanding activities such as swimming. Behavioural abnormalities and changed activity in response to ocean acidification are reported in fish and crustacean species. We studied swimming activity in the calanoid copepod Pseudocalanus acuspes in response to near-future ocean acidification. Water and copepods were sampled from ten mesocosms deployed on the Swedish west coast. The experiments were conducted on animals reared in the mesocosms for 2 months during spring. Copepods were filmed after long-term (chronic) high-CO2, and after 20 h acute exposure to CO2. There was no significant effect of CO2 on copepods in chronic high-CO2, nor significant effect after the 20 h acute exposure. In addition, we measured prosome length from a large number of adult copepods, but no effect of acidification on body size was found. In this study, P. acuspes did not show sensitivity to near-future pCO2 levels. Even if a number of papers suggest that copepods seem robust to future ocean acidification, interaction between multiple stress factors, such as elevated temperature, hypoxia and salinity changes may impair a copepod’s ability to resist lowered pH.

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Acknowledgements

We thank the entire KOSMOS team from GEOMAR, Kiel for providing the opportunity to participate in the mesocosm project. Great thanks to Andrea Ludwig for organizing logistics. We thank Maria Alguero, Henriette Horn and Julia Lange for the joint sampling effort during our stay and the Sven Lovén Centre for Marine Sciences Kristineberg for providing excellent working facilities. We also thank Andreas Lindén for valuable input on the statistical models and Lara Valentič for great company during the trip and help in the lab. The study was supported by the Academy of Finland (Project No. 276947), Victoriastiftelsen and Walter och Andrée de Nottbecks stiftelse.

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  1. Andreas Brutemark

    Present address: Calluna AB, Stockholm, Sweden

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Environmental and Marine Biology, Faculty of Science and Engineering, Åbo Akademi University, Turku, Finland

    Anna-Karin Almén

  2. Novia University of Applied Sciences, Ekenäs, Finland

    Anna-Karin Almén, Andreas Brutemark & Jonna Engström-Öst

  3. Tvärminne Zoological Station, University of Helsinki, Hanko, Finland

    Andreas Brutemark

  4. Department of Biology, Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), Trondheim, Norway

    Fredrik Jutfelt

  5. GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel, Kiel, Germany

    Ulf Riebesell

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  1. Anna-Karin Almén
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Correspondence to Anna-Karin Almén.

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Almén, AK., Brutemark, A., Jutfelt, F. et al. Ocean acidification causes no detectable effect on swimming activity and body size in a common copepod. Hydrobiologia 802, 235–243 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10750-017-3273-5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10750-017-3273-5

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