Effects of nutrition on somatic growth and reproductive strategy of the sea urchin Pseudechinus huttoni

Abstract

This study aimed to understand how resource allocation to somatic and gonadal tissues of the sea urchin Pseudechinus huttoni was influenced by nutritional status using several methods. Urchins in the laboratory were fed kelp (Macrocystis pyrifera) four days a week as the low-quality diet group, or a mixture of kelp and cockle flesh (Austrovenus stutchburyi) once a week, as the high-quality diet group. The experiment lasted for one year. The gonad, gut, lantern, test, lantern muscle indices and gametogenic stage were measured at 3 weeks and 6 and 12 months after the start of the experiment. A highquality diet led to higher gonad (only in females) and gut indices but lower lantern, lantern muscles and test indices. Females allocated a higher percentage of energy to the gonad when fed a high-quality diet but a higher percentage of energy to the test when fed a low-quality diet. Dietary condition had no influence on gametogenic stages; however, the urchins fed a high-quality diet had larger oocytes. The gonadal growth appears not to have priority over somatic growth in P. huttoni and more energy resources are allocated to the test when food is limited.

Photoperiod, temperature, and food availability as drivers of the annual reproductive cycle of the sea urchin Echinometra sp. from the Gulf of Aqaba (Red Sea)

“…Thus, elucidating the potential environmental factors that regulate sea urchin reproduction greatly contributes to our ability to assess and predict the future of these prominent reef-structuring organisms, in particular in the context of climate change and the continuous increase in anthropogenic perturbations to the marine environment. Although not fully resolved in sea urchins, several environmental factors have been suggested to play an important role in regulating echinoid reproduction; among these factors are photoperiod (Kelso 1971;Pearse et al 1986;Bay-Schmith and Pearse 1987;McClintock and Watts 1990;Walker and Lesser 1998;Shpigel et al 2004), temperature (Byrne 1990;Pearse and Cameron 1991;Guillou and Michel 1993;King et al 1994;Vaïtilingon et al 2005;James et al 2007), and food availability (Lawrence and Lane 1982;Muthiga and Jaccarini 2005;Harrington et al 2007;Poorbagher et al 2010).…”

Somatic growth and gonadal development of Paracentrotus lividus (Lamarck, 1816) fed with diets of different ingredient sources

“…The impact of feed type, quantity and quality in the somatic growth of edible sea urchins have been addressed for other sea urchin species including Loxechinus albus (Molina 1782), Lytechinus variegatus (Lamarck, 1816), Tripneustes gratilla (Linnaeus 1758), Pseudechinus huttoni (Benham 1908) and Strongylocentrotus droebachiensis (Müller 1776) by applying variable feeding strategies including exclusive macroalgae feeding (Frantzis and Grémare, 1992;Poorbagher et al, 2010;Castilla-Gavilán et al, 2019), by combining macroalgae and extruded pelleted diets (Otero-Villanueva et al, 2004;Eddy et al, 2012;Cárcamo, 2015;Cyrus et al, 2015), and by using exclusively dry feeds and extruded pelleted diets (Fernandez and Pergent, 1998;Mcbride et al, 1998;Fernandez and Boudouresque, 2000;Akiyama et al, 2001;Otero-Villanueva et al, 2004;Kennedy et al, 2005;Hammer et al, 2006aHammer et al, , 2006bHammer et al, , 2010Dworjanyn et al, 2007;Poorbagher et al, 2010;Eddy et al, 2012;Heflin et al, 2013Heflin et al, , 2016Cárcamo, 2015;Cyrus et al, 2015;Vizzini et al, 2018).…”

Fitness benefits of size-dependent diet switching in a marine herbivore

“…Since the synthesis of vitellogenin protein occurs in the intestines of both male and female sea urchins (Shyu et al 1986;Byrne et al 1999), the lack of oocytes containing vitellogenin in D. pulchra fed urchins is probably directly related to poor diet. In general, high-quality diets for sea urchins lead to larger gonads in females but lower test indices (Poorbagher et al 2010). For males, only large urchins originating from and fed E. radiata had a similar distribution of maturity stages to field urchins.…”