Ocean acidification is changing the carbonate system of the world's oceans and has been driving all marine organisms to live in increasingly acidic environments. Tigriopus japonicus is an ideal standard test animal in sea water. In the present study, we investigated the influence of carbon dioxide (CO 2 )-induced seawater acidification on the development and lifetime reproduction of T. japonicus to accumulate basic data for assessing the potential impact of ocean acidification. The harpacticoid copepods were exposed in seawater equilibrated with CO 2 and air to reach pH 8.0 (control), 7.7 (the predicted ocean pH by 2100), 7.3 (the predicted ocean pH by 2300) and 6.5 (an extreme condition relevant to industrial acid waste discharge or leakage from CO 2 seabed storage). Survival was found to be unaffected following the 56 day exposure period. Significant retardation of development rates of the nauplius stage was observed at pH 6.5, while the development time of the copepodite stage was unaffected. Acidification did not affect the number of broods but it significantly reduced the hatching success of egg sacs at pH 6.5. Total production of nauplii over the lifetime of female copepods was significantly reduced at pH 7.3. Over successive broods, nauplius production was significantly affected by exposure time, pH and their interaction. Shedding of unhatched egg sacs by females mainly occurred in the late breeding stage at pH 7.3 and 6.5. Our results indicated that T. japonicus adults are tolerant to the ocean acidification conditions predicted for the year 2100, but the early development and reproductive capacity of females could be impaired by long-term exposure to more severe acidification conditions (pH 7.3 and 6.5). More long-term studies on a wider range of copepod species from different taxa and different marine habitats are urgently required to predict the fate of marine copepod communities in future oceans.
Seafood coloration is typically considered an indicator of quality and nutritional value by consumers. One such seafood is the Xishi abalone (Haliotis gigantea), which displays muscle color polymorphism wherein a small subset of individuals display orange coloration of muscles due to carotenoid enrichment. However, the metabolic basis for carotenoid accumulation has not been thoroughly investigated in marine mollusks. Here, GC-TOF-MS-based untargeted metabolite profiling was used to identify key pathways and metabolites involved in differential carotenoid accumulation in abalones with variable carotenoid contents. Cholesterol was the most statistically significant metabolite that differentiated abalones with orange muscles against those with common white muscles. This observation is likely due to the competitive interactions between cholesterol and carotenoids during cellular absorption. In addition, the accumulation of carotenoids was also related to fatty acid contents. Overall, this study indicates that metabolomics can reflect physiological changes in organisms and provides a useful framework for exploring the mechanisms underlying carotenoid accumulation in abalone types.
The Xishi abalone (Haliotis gigantea) is an economically significant aquaculture species in southern China. We identified a novel orange‐muscle mutation present in less than 2% of the cultured population. High‐performance liquid chromatography and electrospray ionization mass spectrometry identified zeaxanthin and β‐carotene as the two main pigments present in the orange‐muscle abalone. The concentrations of zeaxanthin and β‐carotene detected in the orange‐muscle abalones were significantly higher than those detected in the common abalones (p < 0.01). Notably, the concentration of zeaxanthin was approximately 16.5 times higher in orange‐muscle abalones than in common abalones, which was also the species with highest carotenoid content reported in shellfish to date. Furthermore, the contents of total amino acids and essential amino acids in the orange‐muscle abalone were higher than that in the common abalone, though not significantly, while the content of non‐essential amino acids was significantly higher in the orange‐muscle abalone than that in the common abalone (p < 0.05). The saturated fatty acid content in the orange‐muscle abalones was slightly lower than that in the common abalones, and the unsaturated fatty acid content was higher in the orange‐muscle abalones than that in the common abalones. These results could provide a basis for characterizing the mechanism by which carotenoids accumulate in abalones and further guide the breeding of abalone with orange‐muscle mutants in the future.
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