The effect of temperature throughout intracapsular development and adult life of the European Sting Winkle, Ocenebra Erinaceus (Linnaeus, 1758) in the global warming contex

Abstract

Climate change is shifting temperature regimes across Earth, which will result in impacts on the physiology, ecology and distribution patterns of organisms, especially for ectotherms species were nearly all-physiological and behavioural traits are sensitive to temperature. Many predictions assume that each population of a particular species has the same environmental niche; however, these predictions do not consider that across species’ geographic distributions, species exhibit intraspecific differences among populations. This could be more pronounced for species that undergo direct development, with restricted connectivity and low gene flow, which increase the potential for individuals to evolve local adaptations to native environmental conditions. This thesis aimed to understand the effect of temperature during the early and adult stages in two populations with different thermal histories of the European winkle Ocenebra erinaceus (Linnaeus, 1758).
The results showed that O. erinaceus exhibits intraspecific differences during early development in terms of its thermal tolerance and physiological response. Embryos from the warm water population showed a wide, eurythermal tolerance range, exhibiting metabolic adjustment to increased temperatures. On the contrary, embryos from the cold water population showed narrow thermal tolerance windows, showing limited metabolic compensation to high temperatures. The thermal tolerance variation among populations of O. erinaceus might be a result of physiological adaptations to local thermal conditions. Moreover, local adaptation during early stages can persists in later ontogenetic stages. Adults from the thermal sensitive population (i.e. cold water) exposed to future ocean conditions showed a partial acclimation and cessation of reproductive investment.
This study demonstrated that the impact of global warming will depend on the physiological adaptation of embryos as well as adults to local environmental conditions. O. erinaceus exhibits intraspecific differences at population-scale in its optimal temperatures and thermal limits. In warming scenarios, local extinctions will be expected in northern populations with the potential of the expansion of the distribution range of southern populations to fill the niche space left empty by northern populations.

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ORCID for Christopher Hauton: orcid.org/0000-0002-2313-4226

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