Effects of ocean acidification on learning in coral reef fishes

Ocean acidification has the potential to cause dramatic changes in marine ecosystems. Larval damselfish exposed to concentrations of CO2 predicted to occur in the mid- to late-century show maladaptive responses to predator cues. However, there is considerable variation both within and between species in CO2 effects, whereby some individuals are unaffected at particular CO2 concentrations while others show maladaptive responses to predator odour. Our goal was to test whether learning via chemical or visual information would be impaired by ocean acidification and ultimately, whether learning can mitigate the effects of ocean acidification by restoring the appropriate responses of prey to predators. Using two highly efficient and widespread mechanisms for predator learning, we compared the behaviour of pre-settlement damselfish Pomacentrus amboinensis that were exposed to 440 µatm CO2 (current day levels) or 850 µatm CO2, a concentration predicted to occur in the ocean before the end of this century. We found that, regardless of the method of learning, damselfish exposed to elevated CO2 failed to learn to respond appropriately to a common predator, the dottyback, Pseudochromis fuscus. To determine whether the lack of response was due to a failure in learning or rather a short-term shift in trade-offs preventing the fish from displaying overt antipredator responses, we conditioned 440 or 700 µatm-CO2 fish to learn to recognize a dottyback as a predator using injured conspecific cues, as in Experiment 1. When tested one day post-conditioning, CO2 exposed fish failed to respond to predator odour. When tested 5 days post-conditioning, CO2 exposed fish still failed to show an antipredator response to the dottyback odour, despite the fact that both control and CO2-treated fish responded to a general risk cue (injured conspecific cues). These results indicate that exposure to CO2 may alter the cognitive ability of juvenile fish and render learning ineffective.

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Cite this as

Ferrari, Maud C O, Manassa, Rachel, Dixson, Danielle L, Munday, Philip L, McCormick, Mark I, Meekan, Mark, Sihler, H, Chivers, Douglas P (2012). Dataset: Effects of ocean acidification on learning in coral reef fishes. https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.848085

DOI retrieved: 2012

Additional Info

Field Value
Imported on November 30, 2024
Last update November 30, 2024
License CC-BY-3.0
Source https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.848085
Author Ferrari, Maud C O
Given Name Maud C O
Family Name Ferrari
More Authors
Manassa, Rachel
Dixson, Danielle L
Munday, Philip L
McCormick, Mark I
Meekan, Mark
Sihler, H
Chivers, Douglas P
Source Creation 2012
Publication Year 2012
Resource Type text/tab-separated-values - filename: Ferrari_2012
Subject Areas
Name: BiologicalClassification

Name: Chemistry

Related Identifiers
Title: Effects of ocean acidification on learning in coral reef fishes
Identifier: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0031478
Type: DOI
Relation: IsSupplementTo
Year: 2012
Source: PLoS ONE
Authors: Ferrari Maud C O , Manassa Rachel , Dixson Danielle L , Munday Philip L , McCormick Mark I , Meekan Mark , Sihler H , Chivers Douglas P .

Title: seacarb: seawater carbonate chemistry with R. R package version 3.0.6
Identifier: https://cran.r-project.org/package=seacarb
Type: DOI
Relation: References
Year: 2015
Authors: Gattuso Jean-Pierre , Epitalon Jean-Marie , Lavigne Héloïse .