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Understanding the Ecological Impacts of Invasive Tunicates and Their Response to Climate Change
| Content Provider | Semantic Scholar |
|---|---|
| Author | Zhang, Yingqi Deegan, Linda Carman, Mary R. |
| Copyright Year | 2017 |
| Abstract | Invasive colonial tunicates have become widely distributed in estuaries on Cape Cod over the past years. My study aims to understand how invasive tunicates interact with other organisms in the ecosystem, and to explore the response of tunicates to future climate regime. I collected two species of invasive tunicate (Didemnum vexillum and Botrylloides violaceus) as well as one species of native tunicate (Aplidium glabrum), and evaluated their metabolic rates. I also collected sixteen blue mussels (Mytilus edulis), and investigated on the interaction between tunicates and mussels. Finally, I tested the response of tunicates to the changing climate using experimental manipulations of increased temperature and decreased pH. I found that D. vexillum and B. violaceus consumed oxygen at slightly faster rates than Aplidium glabrum. Both tunicates and blue mussels were feeding on phytoplankton as their major food source. Fouling tunicates were strongly competing with mussels to filter feed, but were not inhibiting mussel’s filtration rate. This was in part because the tunicates had not overgrown the shell lip, thus the mussels were still able to gap open to feed. Invasive tunicates might be more resilient to ocean warming and acidification, although this finding needs to be verified by further studies. |
| File Format | PDF HTM / HTML |
| Alternate Webpage(s) | http://www.mbl.edu/ses/files/2017/02/Zhang_final.pdf |
| Language | English |
| Access Restriction | Open |
| Content Type | Text |
| Resource Type | Article |
