Combined effect of marine heatwaves and light intensity on the cellular stress response and photophysiology of the leather coral Sarcophyton cf. glaucum.

Marine heatwaves (MHW) are threatening tropical coral reef ecosystems, leading to mass bleaching events worldwide. The combination of heat stress with high irradiance is known to shape the health and redox status of corals, but research is biased toward scleractinian corals, while much less is known on tropical symbiotic soft corals. Here, we evaluated the cellular stress response and the photophysiological performance of the soft coral Sarcophyton cf.

Cellular stress response and acclimation capacity of the ditch shrimp Palaemon varians to extreme weather events - How plastic can a plastic species be?

Species from shallow marine environments are particularly vulnerable to extreme weather events (heatwaves and extreme rainfall) that can promote abrupt environmental shifts, namely in temperature and salinity (respectively). To assess how these shifts impact species' cellular stress responses (CSR), ditch shrimps Palaemon varians were exposed to a chronic (28 days) thermohaline stress experiment. Three levels of temperature (20, 23 and 26 °C) and two levels of salinity (20 and 40) were tested in a full factorial experiment, and shrimps sampled at the 7th, 14th, 21st and 28th day of exposure.

Sex-specific thermal tolerance limits in the ditch shrimp Palaemon varians: Eco-evolutionary implications under a warming ocean.

As global temperatures continue to rise due to global change, marine heatwaves are also becoming more frequent and intense, impacting marine biodiversity patterns worldwide. Organisms inhabiting shallow water environments, such as the commercially relevant ditch shrimp Palaemon varians, are expected to be the most affected by rising temperatures. Thus, addressing species' thermal ecology and climate extinction-risk is crucial to foster climate-smart conservation strategies for shallow water ecosystems.