Physiological advantages of dwarfing in surviving extinctions in high-CO2 oceans

Excessive CO2 in the present-day ocean-atmosphere system is causing ocean acidification, and is likely to cause a severe biodiversity decline in the future, mirroring effects in many past mass extinctions. Fossil records demonstrate that organisms surviving such events were often smaller than those before, a phenomenon called the Lilliput effect. Here, we show that two gastropod species adapted to acidified seawater at shallow-water CO2 seeps were smaller than those found in normal pH conditions and had higher mass-specific energy consumption but significantly lower whole-animal metabolic energy demand. These physiological changes allowed the animals to maintain calcification and to partially repair shell dissolution. These observations of the long-term chronic effects of increased CO2 levels forewarn of changes we can expect in marine ecosystems as CO2 emissions continue to rise unchecked, and support the hypothesis that ocean acidification contributed to past extinction events. The ability to adapt through dwarfing can confer physiological advantages as the rate of CO2 emissions continues to increase.

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Garilli, Vittorio, Rodolfo-Metalpa, Riccardo, Scuderi, Danilo, Brusca, Lorenzo, Parrinello, Daniela, Rastrick, S P S, Foggo, A, Twitchett, Richard J, Hall-Spencer, Jason M, Milazzo, Marco (2015). Dataset: Physiological advantages of dwarfing in surviving extinctions in high-CO2 oceans. https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.847397

DOI retrieved: 2015

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.847397
Author Garilli, Vittorio
Given Name Vittorio
Family Name Garilli
More Authors
Rodolfo-Metalpa, Riccardo
Scuderi, Danilo
Brusca, Lorenzo
Parrinello, Daniela
Rastrick, S P S
Foggo, A
Twitchett, Richard J
Hall-Spencer, Jason M
Milazzo, Marco
Source Creation 2015
Publication Year 2015
Resource Type text/tab-separated-values - filename: Garilli_2015
Subject Areas
Name: Atmosphere

Name: BiologicalClassification

Name: Chemistry

Name: Ecology

Related Identifiers
Title: Physiological advantages of dwarfing in surviving extinctions in high-CO2 oceans
Identifier: https://doi.org/10.1038/NCLIMATE2616
Type: DOI
Relation: IsSupplementTo
Year: 2015
Source: Nature Climate Change
Authors: Garilli Vittorio , Rodolfo-Metalpa Riccardo , Scuderi Danilo , Brusca Lorenzo , Parrinello Daniela , Rastrick S P S , Foggo A , Twitchett Richard J , Hall-Spencer Jason M , Milazzo Marco .

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 .