Environmental regulation of individual body size contributes to geographic variation in clonal life cycle expression

Ryan, WH, Adams, L, Bonthond, G, Mieszkowska, N, Pack, KE and Krueger-Hadfield, SA 2019 Environmental regulation of individual body size contributes to geographic variation in clonal life cycle expression. Marine Biology, 166, 157. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00227-019-3608-z

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Abstract/Summary

Clonal behavior has been hypothesized to provide an escape from allometric metabolic scaling that limits the maximum mass achieved by a single individual. Here, we demonstrate the capacity of a wide-spread, non-native sea anemone to buffer its colony biomass accumulation rate across environments by modulating ramet body size through environmentally dependent growth, fission, and catabolism. In 2015, thermal reaction norms for growth and fission behavior were constructed using clonal lines of the sea anemone Diadumene lineata. In 2018, variation in growth patterns under a factorial cross of temperature level and oxygen availability was examined to test the hypothesis that individual ramet size is regulated by oxygen limitation in accordance with optimal size theory. Across a wide range of temperatures, colonies accumulated a similar amount of biomass despite a radical shift from unitary to clonal growth, supporting fission as a mechanism to buffer growth rates over a range of conditions. Individual body size appears to be regulated by the environment with increased temperature and reduced oxygen modifying fission and mass-specific growth patterns, leading to the production of smaller-bodied ramets in warm conditions. However, whether anemones in common garden conditions reduce individual body size through catabolism or fission depends on the region of origin and may relate to differences in seasonal temperature patterns among coastlines, which influence the energetic benefits of fission rate plasticity.

Item Type: Publication - Article
Subjects: Marine Sciences
Divisions: Marine Biological Association of the UK > Ocean Biology
Depositing User: Emily Smart
Date made live: 09 Jul 2021 09:29
Last Modified: 09 Feb 2024 16:53
URI: https://plymsea.ac.uk/id/eprint/9254

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