Role of depleted initial energy reserves in early benthic phase mortality of six marine invertebrate species.

Insufficient energy reserves are widely considered to be a primary factor contributing to high rates of early benthic phase mortality among benthic marine invertebrates, but this hypothesis has been based mostly on indirect, observational evidence, and remains largely untested. We therefore examined the role of initial energy reserves in regulating survivorship and growth during the early benthic phase. Recently settled or hatched individuals of six invertebrate species were collected from natural populations, maintained without food, and their survivorship was monitored.

Implications of acute temperature and salinity tolerance thresholds for the persistence of intertidal invertebrate populations experiencing climate change.

To predict whether populations of marine animals will persist in the face of changing climate conditions, it is informative to understand how past climate conditions have shaped present-day tolerance thresholds. We examined 4 species of intertidal invertebrates ( and ) inhabiting the coasts of Vancouver Island, Canada, where the east coast experiences historically warmer sea surface temperature (SST), warmer low tide (i.e.

Role of maternal provisioning in controlling interpopulation variation in hatching size in the marine snail Nucella ostrina.

This study examined the role of maternal provisioning in controlling interpopulation variation in hatching size in nine isolated populations of the intertidal gastropod Nucella ostrina, in which development to the early juvenile stage takes place within an egg capsule. Variation among populations was almost entirely due to the ratio of nurse eggs to embryo, which explained 65% of the variation in hatching size. Egg size was not a significant predictor of hatching size.