Editorial: Studying the Biology of Aquatic Animals Through Calcified Structures

AVIGLIANO, ESTEBAN; VOLPEDO, ALEJANDRA VANINA; WALTHER, BENJAMIN D.

FRONTIERS IN MARINE SCIENCE

Frontiers Media SA

Año: 2020 vol. 7 p. 1 - 4

2296-7745

Calcified structures of aquatic animals can be classified according to their biological function (equilibrium, hearing, structure, etc.), composition (hydroxyapatite, calcium carbonate), and crystallography (aragonite, vaterite, calcite) (Tzadik et al., 2017; Thomas and Swearer, 2019).The chemistry and morphometry of structures such as otoliths, statoliths, spines, scales, bones, cuttlebone, and shells among others, have been widely used to reconstruct organism movement and water properties in many different environments (Walther et al., 2014; Tzadik et al., 2017; Thomas and Swearer, 2019; Avigliano et al., 2020a). Trace and majority elements (e.g., strontium, barium, manganese, magnesium, zinc, lithium, copper, etc.) deposited into the calcified structures can provide insights about habitats experienced during the life histories of fish and other organisms, as well as endogenous processes including growth and metabolism (Hüssy et al., 2020). A robust knowledge about drivers that have an impact on chemistry and shape, and the potential interaction between them, is required to accurately interpret chemical and morphometric patterns. Many studies have implicitly assumed that the water chemical composition is the main driver about composition of these structures. However, in the last decade, field and experimental studies have revealed a complex network of endogenous and exogenous factors that can interact with eachother and control uptake and incorporation of elements into (Hüssy et al., 2020). Among theknown important endogenous factors are genetics, physiological processes (e.g., reproduction, metamorphosis), growth rate, ontogeny, and biomineralization (Campana, 1999; Loewen et al., 2016; Thomas and Swearer, 2019; Hüssy et al., 2020). The environment to which organisms are exposed throughout their lives is one of the main exogenous drivers, where variables such as temperature, pH, salinity, depth, and dissolved oxygen, can modify the chemical composition of the water directly as well as alter organisms physiology and uptake and incorporation dynamics (Limburg et al., 2015; Loewen et al., 2016; Crichton, 2018; Thomas and Swearer, 2019; Hüssy et al., 2020). Secondarily, diet and even differential fishing pressure (which directly impacts growth parameters) can also play an important role in chemical composition (Ranaldi and Gagnon, 2009; Catalán et al., 2018). Likewise, the factors that affect the shape of these structures are complex (Lombarte and Lleonart, 1993; Vignon and Morat, 2010).The objective of this Research Topic was to encourage the use of calcified structures (lethaland non-lethal) to study the biology of aquatic animals, not only otoliths of bony fishes, butalso structures of cartilaginous fishes and mollusks, among others. The aim was also to highlight Avigliano et al. Editorial: Calcified Structures of Aquatic Animalsmultiple analytical approaches including chemistry, morphology and morphometry that were synthesized with biological or environmental data, field observations or experimental tests, that paid special attention to the potential variables that affect the incorporation of trace elements. Several articles of this Research Topic were presented at ?II Latin American Workshop on otoliths and other calcified structures? (Buenos Aires-Argentina on August 28?30, 2019). In total, 20 manuscripts compose this Research Topic, covering a variety of themes, revised below.