Laboratório de Echinodermata, Museu Nacional/Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ), Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; Fórum de Ciência e Cultura/Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ), Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
Laboratório de Annelida, Instituto de Biologia/Universidade Federal da Bahia (UFBA), Bahia, Brazil.
Mar Environ Res. 2023 Nov;192:106186. doi: 10.1016/j.marenvres.2023.106186. Epub 2023 Sep 26.
Echinoderms play important roles in marine ecosystems and exhibit high sensitivity to environmental changes. The echinoid Cassidulus mitis has been considered an endangered species due to its restricted geographic distribution and unique reproductive behavior, with an epibenthic lecithotrophic larva and offspring brooded among the female spines during initial development until the settler stage. We studied the effects of low salinities (30 and 26) and high temperatures (27 and 31 °C) on the early development of C. mitis in a predicted scenario of global climate change through four parameters: 1. survival and 2. chronology of larval development, and 3. survival and 4. growth of settlers. Both larvae and settlers of C. mitis can survive under these scenarios, probably due to the lecithotrophic and epibenthic larval characteristics and developmental strategies of this species. However, all experimental conditions affected at least one of the initial developmental studied parameters of C. mitis, potentially compromising the species' viability in a scenario of climate change.
棘皮动物在海洋生态系统中发挥着重要作用，对环境变化高度敏感。由于地理分布范围有限和独特的繁殖行为，短腕石笔海胆被认为是一种濒危物种，其浮游的内黄卵幼虫和在初始发育过程中在雌性棘刺之间孵化的幼体，直到定居者阶段。我们通过四个参数研究了低盐度（30 和 26）和高温（27 和 31°C）对全球气候变化预测情景中短腕石笔海胆早期发育的影响：1. 存活率和 2. 幼虫发育的时程，以及 3. 存活率和 4. 定居者的生长。短腕石笔海胆的幼虫和定居者都可以在这些条件下生存，这可能是由于该物种的内黄卵和浮游幼虫特征以及发育策略。然而，所有实验条件至少影响了短腕石笔海胆初始发育研究参数中的一个，这可能会影响该物种在气候变化情景下的生存能力。
