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Rapid plastic responses to chronic hypoxia in the bearded fireworm, Hermodice carunculata (Annelida: Amphinomidae)

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Abstract

Hypoxia is a widespread and increasing phenomenon in marine environments, including coral reefs. The bearded fireworm (Hermodice carunculata) is a large corallivorous amphinomid polychaete, with a high tolerance of environmental stress, including temperature, salinity, and dissolved oxygen (DO). Currently, little is known about the response of H. carunculata to chronic (≥ 18 h) hypoxia, although this knowledge is crucial to understand its impact on coral reef health under hypoxia scenarios. We tested the hypothesis that the number of branchial filaments (previously used as a diagnostic character for species identification) increases in response to chronic hypoxia. We subjected wild-caught fireworms to two levels of reduced DO (Mid: 4.5 ± 0.25 mg O2 L−1 and Low: 2.5 ± 0.25 mg O2 L−1) to explore their morphological and physiological responses to seven days of chronic hypoxia. Hypoxia exposure resulted in a higher number of branchial filaments (low = 57.2 ± 5.3, mid = 57.4 ± 6.1, and normal = 47.4 ± 11.2) after seven days. Fireworms exposed to hypoxia further reduced their rate of regeneration, but returned to normal regenerative rates after fifteen weeks under normoxic conditions. There was no difference in regeneration rates between low and mid DO groups. Our results demonstrate the importance of considering multiple physiological and morphological endpoints as well as phenotypic plasticity in species delimitations. Indeed, the results suggest that morphological variation can be indicative of environmental conditions.

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Acknowledgements

As this is a portion of CJG’s dissertation, we acknowledge her committee members, Drs. Jerry Kudenov and Maria Pia Miglietta, and the Marine Biology Department for additional funding. Two undergraduate interns, Kyle Donnelly and Crystal Capps, assisted with morphological data acquisition and aquarium maintenance. We’d also like to acknowledge the Miglietta Lab, Katie St. Claire, Sea Life Facility volunteers, TAMUG staff and Cory Ames for help with experimental tank set up, maintenance, and map creation. Organisms were collected under the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) Special Activity License (SAL-17–1946-SR). Finally, we’d like to thank the reviewers for their feedback and suggestions.

Funding

This project was funded by the TAMU-CAPES Collaborative Grant Program (grant 2015-16). We declare no conflicts of interest.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Marine Biology Department, Texas A&M University at Galveston, Galveston, TX, 77554, USA

    Candace J. Grimes, Lene H. Petersen & Anja Schulze

  2. Instituto de Biologia–Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

    Paulo C. Paiva

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  1. Candace J. Grimes
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  2. Paulo C. Paiva
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  3. Lene H. Petersen
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  4. Anja Schulze
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Contributions

This study was conceived by CJG, PCP and AS. CJG, LHP and AS designed the experimental set-up. CJG was primarily responsible for performing the experiments, collecting and analyzing the data and writing the manuscript. The data were discussed among all authors and all authors contributed wording and edits to the final version of the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Candace J. Grimes.

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Grimes, C.J., Paiva, P.C., Petersen, L.H. et al. Rapid plastic responses to chronic hypoxia in the bearded fireworm, Hermodice carunculata (Annelida: Amphinomidae). Mar Biol 167, 140 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00227-020-03756-0

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