Ocean warming lead to heat shock protein expression and decrease in the feeding rate of the Patagonian sea star Anasterias minuta.

ARRIBAS, LORENA P.; JOSE E.F. ALFAYA; M. GABRIELA PALOMO; SEBASTIAN GIULIANELLI; ROCIO A. NIETO VILELA; GREGORIO BIGATTI

JOURNAL OF EXPERIMENTAL MARINE BIOLOGY AND ECOLOGY

ELSEVIER SCIENCE BV

Lugar: Amsterdam; Año: 2021 vol. 546 p. 1 - 6

0022-0981

Climate change has consequences over marine organisms and their behavior. Echinoderms have been found to benegatively affected on righting time, survival, feeding rate or growth by high temperatures, low salinity or theirinteraction. We analyzed the effects of temperature and salinity fluctuation under a climate change scenario onfeeding rate, righting time and heat shock proteins (Hsp70) expression in the sea star Anasterias minuta. Ourresults showed negative effects of increased temperature in the feeding rate of A. minuta. In addition, Hsp70expression in gonads showed an upregulation after water temperature increase in normal salinity conditions.Regarding the righting activity, we detected a variable pattern among treatments with significant statisticaldifferences in the interaction of temperature and salinity, and in time intervals measured. Variations in sea starsfeeding ecology could produce direct and cascading effects driving ecological shifts as changes in speciescomposition of the coastal Patagonian ecosystems. Investigating the effect of sea stars on intertidal and subtidalassemblages in a climate change scenario is of great importance to provide valuable information for an adequatemanagement of intertidal habitats, which have been little studied in Atlantic Patagonia.