Acclimation and adaptation to common marine pollutants in the copepod Tigriopus californicus

Impacts of mercury exposure on life history traits of Tigriopus japonicus: Multigeneration effects and recovery from pollution

“…Additionally, a sign of recovery was observed in F4 under multigenerational exposure, since at most cases the restrained effects of Hg on the copepod's fecundity trended to decrease in this generation when compared with F3. This provides some evidence that phenotypic plasticity played an important role in Hg acclimation obtained by marine copepods after multigenerational exposure, which is illustrated by several previous studies on copper (Kwok et al, 2009;Sun et al, 2014) and Hg acclimation (Tsui and Wang, 2005). Kwok et al (2009) found that a single generation exposed to copper strikingly enhanced metal tolerance in T. japonicus, which was then lost when the tolerant lines' offspring were reared in absence of copper.…”

“…Such information is most valuable for marine ecotoxicological studies where degenerative or adaptive responses in progeny may be the most critical impacts. In recent years, more efforts have focused on the impact of multigenerational exposure to heavy metals on the growth and tolerance development of aquatic animals (Kwok et al, 2009;Lilley et al, 2012;Sun et al, 2014;Tsui and Wang, 2005;Vidal and Horne, 2003), as exposing the organisms to heavy metals through many generations might mimic the scenario that the organisms face in contaminated sites. Multigenerational studies can reveal acclimation or adaptive responses.…”

“…Multigenerational studies can reveal acclimation or adaptive responses. Acclimation is a plastic physiological response driven by a stressor that can occur within a single generation at the level of an individual, and effects of acclimation can quickly be gained under a stressor and lost in the absence of the stressor (Sun et al, 2014). Physiological acclimation confers a phenomenon of phenotypic plasticity, that is, the capacity of a single genotype to exhibit a range of phenotypes in response to different environmental conditions, and it can underpin several aquatic animals' well documented capability to cope with a wide variety of stressors including heavy metals (Kwok et al, 2009;Lilley et al, 2012;Marinković et al, 2012).…”

Towards an urban marine ecology: characterizing the drivers, patterns and processes of marine ecosystems in coastal cities

“…This work needs to be conducted across multiple organismal scales to account for potential urban-related acclimatization at the level of holobionts -host-microbial assemblages that function as an ecological unit (Ziegler et al 2016, Evans et al 2017. Further, the heritability of urbandriven adaptation should be considered through both genetic and epigenetic approaches, as acclimatization responses can be inherited via transgenerational maternal effects and methylation patterns (Sun et al 2014, Suarez-Ulloa et al 2015.…”

Copepods as References Species in Estuarine and Marine Waters

“…Interest in ecotoxicity with marine copepods increased rapidly in the 1990s. The most extreme example is a 12-generation toxicity study of copper and tributyltin using Tigriopus californicus (Sun et al, 2014). Harpacticoids appeared to be the earliest group to be used (Nitocra spinipes as in Barnes and Stanbury, 1948).…”