Tropical seagrass Halophila stipulacea shifts thermal tolerance during Mediterranean invasion
Type
ArticleAuthors
Wesselmann, Marlene
Anton Gamazo, Andrea

Duarte, Carlos M.

Hendriks, Iris E.
Agusti, Susana

Savva, Ioannis
Apostolaki, Eugenia T.
Marbà, Núria

KAUST Department
Red Sea Research Center (RSRC)Biological and Environmental Sciences and Engineering (BESE) Division
Marine Science Program
Date
2020-03-04Online Publication Date
2020-03-04Print Publication Date
2020-03-11Submitted Date
2019-12-24Permanent link to this record
http://hdl.handle.net/10754/661652
Metadata
Show full item recordAbstract
Exotic species often face new environmental conditions that are different from those that they are adapted to. The tropical seagrass Halophila stipulacea is a Lessepsian migrant that colonized the Mediterranean Sea around 100 years ago, where at present the minimum seawater temperature is cooler than in its native range in the Red Sea. Here, we tested if the temperature range in which H. stipulacea can exist is conserved within the species or if the exotic populations have shifted their thermal breadth and optimum due to the cooler conditions in the Mediterranean. We did so by comparing the thermal niche (e.g. optimal temperatures, and upper and lower thermal limits) of native (Saudi Arabia in the Red Sea) and exotic (Greece and Cyprus in the Mediterranean Sea) populations of H. stipulacea. We exposed plants to 12 temperature treatments ranging from 8 to 40°C for 7 days. At the end of the incubation period, we measured survival, rhizome elongation, shoot recruitment, net population growth and metabolic rates. Upper and lower lethal thermal thresholds (indicated by 50% plant mortality) were conserved across populations, but minimum and optimal temperatures for growth and oxygen production were lower for Mediterranean populations than for the Red Sea one. The displacement of the thermal niche of exotic populations towards the colder Mediterranean Sea regime could have occurred within 175 clonal generations.Citation
Wesselmann, M., Anton, A., Duarte, C. M., Hendriks, I. E., Agustí, S., Savva, I., … Marbà, N. (2020). Tropical seagrass Halophila stipulacea shifts thermal tolerance during Mediterranean invasion. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 287(1922), 20193001. doi:10.1098/rspb.2019.3001Sponsors
This work was funded by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (Project MEDSHIFT, CGL2015-71809-P), the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities (SUMAECO, RTI2018-095441-B-C21) and King Abdullah University for Science and Technology (3834 KAUST-CSIC Research Collaboration and base line funding to C.M.D.). We thank Zenon Batang for the nutrient concentration data, Julius Glampedakis for field assistance and Olga Sanchez and Rocío Garcia for laboratory assistance. M.W. was supported by a PhD contract (BES-2016-078241) of the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities.Publisher
The Royal SocietyAdditional Links
https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rspb.2019.3001Relations
Is Supplemented By:- [Dataset]
Wesselmann, M., Anton, A., Duarte, C. M., Hendriks, I. E., Agustí, S., Savva, I., Apostolaki, E. T., & Marbà, N. (2020). Supplementary material from " Tropical seagrass Halophila stipulacea shifts thermal tolerance during Mediterranean invasion". The Royal Society. https://doi.org/10.6084/M9.FIGSHARE.C.4870104. DOI: 10.6084/m9.figshare.c.4870104 Handle: 10754/665169
ae974a485f413a2113503eed53cd6c53
10.1098/rspb.2019.3001