Latitudinal incidence of phototrophic shell-degrading endoliths and their effects on mussel bed microclimates

Lourenço, Carla R.; Nicastro, Katy R.; McQuaid, Christopher D.; Sabour, Brahim; Zardi, Gerardo I.

doi:10.1007/s00227-017-3160-7

Cited by 10 publications

(17 citation statements)

References 41 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…The west coast of South Africa is powerfully affected by the Benguela upwelling system and there is abundant evidence that upwelling has a strong influence on the abundance, richness and dynamics of coastal communities [30][31][32]. Nevertheless, previous work along the Atlantic coasts of Portugal and Morocco suggests no direct effect of upwelling on the incidence of phototrophic shell-degrading endoliths [22], but a strong gradient of increasing endolithic infestations in M. galloprovincialis at lower latitudes. Together with our results this suggests that, on the cool temperate west coast, other environmental factors, indirectly related or unrelated to upwelling, enhance endolithic pressure or weaken mussels as hosts.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For M. galloprovincialis, it has been shown that the thermal mitigation provided by endoliths extends beyond individual mussels to the mussel bed interstitial microclimate. Mussels with infested neighbours experience lower body temperatures than those surrounded by non-infested mussels [22]. The bioengineering protection offered by M. galloprovincialis beds to the infauna associated with mussel beds is likely to be enhanced by endolith-induced improvements in humidity and temperature.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The bioengineering protection offered by M. galloprovincialis beds to the infauna associated with mussel beds is likely to be enhanced by endolith-induced improvements in humidity and temperature. Such small-scale habitat amelioration is ecologically important at organismal scales [22] and could be particularly significant under climate warming scenarios.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Biogeographical Patterns of Endolithic Infestation in an Invasive and an Indigenous Intertidal Marine Ecosystem Engineer

et al. 2019

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

By altering the phenotypic properties of their hosts, endolithic parasites can modulate the engineering processes of marine ecosystem engineers. Here, we assessed the biogeographical patterns of species assemblages, prevalence and impact of endolithic parasitism in two mussel species that act as important ecosystem engineers in the southern African intertidal habitat, Perna perna and Mytilus galloprovincialis. We conducted large-scale surveys across three biogeographic regions along the South African coast: the subtropical east coast, dominated by the indigenous mussel, P. perna, the warm temperate south coast, where this species coexists with the invasive Mediterranean mussel, M. galloprovincialis, and the cool temperate west coast dominated by M. galloprovincialis. Infestation increased with mussel size, and in the case of M. galloprovincialis we found a significantly higher infestation in the cool temperate bioregion than the warm temperate region. For P. perna, the prevalence of infestation was higher on the warm temperate than the subtropical region, though the difference was marginally non-significant. On the south coast, there was no significant difference in infestation prevalence between species. Endolith-induced mortality rates through shell collapse mirrored the patterns for prevalence. For P. perna, endolith species assemblages revealed clear grouping by bioregions. Our findings indicate that biogeography affects cyanobacteria species composition, but differences between biogeographic regions in their effects are driven by environmental conditions.

show abstract

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Biogeographical Patterns of Endolithic Infestation in an Invasive and an Indigenous Intertidal Marine Ecosystem Engineer

et al. 2019

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Although such observations cannot quantify or confirm the protective roles of endoliths, they complement previous field manipulative experiments in different regions showing that, during heat waves, the moderation of solar heating by endoliths results in significantly lower mortality rates (Gehman & Harley, 2019; Zardi et al, 2016). Interestingly, large‐scale sampling covering a wide latitudinal range (c. 28–37°N) along the coasts of Portugal and Morocco revealed a strong gradient of increasing endolithic infestation of M. galloprovincialis towards lower latitudes, presumably due to the enhancement of endolith photosynthetic activity through greater light availability and decreased cloud cover towards the equator (Lourenço et al, 2017). Importantly, M. galloprovincialis is the only Mytilus spp.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Foul‐weather friends: Modelling thermal stress mitigation by symbiotic endolithic microbes in a changing environment

Zardi

Monsinjon

McQuaid

et al. 2021

Global Change Biology

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Temperature extremes are predicted to intensify with climate change. These extremes are rapidly emerging as a powerful driver of species distributional changes with the capacity to disrupt the functioning and provision of services of entire ecosystems, particularly when they challenge ecosystem engineers. The subsequent search for a robust framework to forecast the consequences of these changes mostly ignores within‐species variation in thermal sensitivity. Such variation can be intrinsic, but can also reflect species interactions. Intertidal mussels are important ecosystem engineers that host symbiotic endoliths in their shells. These endoliths unexpectedly act as conditionally beneficial parasites that enhance the host's resistance to intense heat stress. To understand how this relationship may be altered under environmental change, we examined the conditions under which it becomes advantageous by reducing body temperature. We deployed biomimetic sensors (robomussels), built using shells of mussels (Mytilus galloprovincialis) that were or were not infested by endoliths, at nine European locations spanning a temperature gradient across 22°of latitude (Orkney, Scotland to the Algarve, Portugal). Daily wind speed and solar radiation explained the maximum variation in the difference in temperature between infested and non‐infested robomussels; the largest difference occurred under low wind speed and high solar radiation. From the robomussel data, we inferred body temperature differences between infested and non‐infested mussels during known heatwaves that induced mass mortality of the mussel Mytilus edulis along the coast of the English Channel in summer 2018 to quantify the thermal advantage of endolith infestation during temperature extremes. Under these conditions, endoliths provided thermal buffering of between 1.7°C and 4.8°C. Our results strongly suggest that sustainability of intertidal mussel beds will increasingly depend on the thermal buffering provided by endoliths. More generally, this work shows that biomimetic models indicate that within‐species thermal sensitivity to global warming can be modulated by species interactions, using an intertidal host–symbiont relationship as an example.

show abstract

“…Such marine ecosystems are under multiple anthropogenic pressures, including overexploitation, chronic pollution, and population fragmentation, and their responses to ongoing global climate change and ocean acidification remain uncertain [30,31]. Under such circumstances, the negative and beneficial effects of euendolithic infestation on individual live calcifying organisms have the potential to reverberate at the population, community, or ecosystem level, with complex, and potentially unexpected, ecological outcomes [32,33]. Understanding how euendolithic infestation interacts with other environmental stressors, and how these interactions will change under future environmental conditions is critical to predicting the long-term fate of such ecosystems.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Photoautotrophic Euendoliths and Their Complex Ecological Effects in Marine Bioengineered Ecosystems

et al. 2022

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Photoautotrophic euendolithic microorganisms are ubiquitous where there are calcium carbonate substrates to bore into and sufficient light to sustain photosynthesis. The most diverse and abundant modern euendolithic communities can be found in the marine environment. Euendoliths, as microorganisms infesting inanimate substrates, were first thought to be ecologically irrelevant. Over the past three decades, numerous studies have subsequently shown that euendoliths can colonize living marine calcifying organisms, such as coral skeletons and bivalve shells, causing both sub-lethal and lethal damage. Moreover, under suitable environmental conditions, their presence can have surprising benefits for the host. Thus, infestation by photoautotrophic euendoliths has significant consequences for calcifying organisms that are of particular importance in the case of ecosystems underpinned by calcifying ecosystem engineers. In this review, we address the nature and diversity of marine euendoliths, as revealed recently through genetic techniques, their bioerosive mechanisms, how environmental conditions influence their incidence in marine ecosystems and their potential as bioindicators, how they affect live calcifiers, and the potential future of euendolithic infestation in the context of global climate change and ocean acidification.

show abstract

Latitudinal incidence of phototrophic shell-degrading endoliths and their effects on mussel bed microclimates

Cited by 10 publications

References 41 publications

Biogeographical Patterns of Endolithic Infestation in an Invasive and an Indigenous Intertidal Marine Ecosystem Engineer

Biogeographical Patterns of Endolithic Infestation in an Invasive and an Indigenous Intertidal Marine Ecosystem Engineer

Foul‐weather friends: Modelling thermal stress mitigation by symbiotic endolithic microbes in a changing environment

Photoautotrophic Euendoliths and Their Complex Ecological Effects in Marine Bioengineered Ecosystems

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About