Hughes AD et al. (2012), Echinoderms display morphological and behaviour...

ECB-ART-42527

PLoS One 2012 Jan 01;78:e41243. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0041243.

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Echinoderms display morphological and behavioural phenotypic plasticity in response to their trophic environment.

Hughes AD , Brunner L , Cook EJ , Kelly MS , Wilson B .

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The trophic interactions of sea urchins are known to be the agents of phase shifts in benthic marine habitats such as tropical and temperate reefs. In temperate reefs, the grazing activity of sea urchins has been responsible for the destruction of kelp forests and the formation of ''urchin barrens'', a rocky habitat dominated by crustose algae and encrusting invertebrates. Once formed, these urchin barrens can persist for decades. Trophic plasticity in the sea urchin may contribute to the stability and resilience of this alternate stable state by increasing diet breadth in sea urchins. This plasticity promotes ecological connectivity and weakens species interactions and so increases ecosystem stability. We test the hypothesis that sea urchins exhibit trophic plasticity using an approach that controls for other typically confounding environmental and genetic factors. To do this, we exposed a genetically homogenous population of sea urchins to two very different trophic environments over a period of two years. The sea urchins exhibited a wide degree of phenotypic trophic plasticity when exposed to contrasting trophic environments. The two populations developed differences in their gross morphology and the test microstructure. In addition, when challenged with unfamiliar prey, the response of each group was different. We show that sea urchins exhibit significant morphological and behavioural phenotypic plasticity independent of their environment or their nutritional status.

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Genes referenced: LOC100887844 LOC115925415

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References [+] :

Agrawal, Phenotypic plasticity in the interactions and evolution of species. 2001, Pubmed


	Figure 2. non Metric Multi-Dimensional Scaling plot of the morphometric data for all the populations of P. miliaris, using the multivariate dispersion R statistic from the paired post-hoc ANOSIM testing as the metric (○ wild type diet, •(black) processed diet, ▪(dark gray) subtidal site 1, ▾(dark gray) intertidal site 1, ▪ (light gray) subtidal site 2 ▾ (light gray)intertidal site 2).
	Figure 3. The morphometric comparison between all the different populations of P. miliaris (□ wild type diet, ▪ (black) processed diet, ▪ (dark gray) site 1, ▪ (light gray) site 2).The letters above indicate that significant differences exist between groups with different letters. Where there are no letters in the panel, there are no significant difference between any of the groups. Error bars represent 95% confidence intervals.
	Figure 4. Differences in the microstructure of the tests of the two experimental populations of P. miliaris (□ wild type diet, ▪ (black) processed diet).Panel A) pores per unit area, B) average pore size mm2, C) pore circularity. * indicates a significant between the treatments.
	Figure 5. Probit binary regression models for the differences prey handling response between the two treatments for A) small Mytilus edulis, B) large Mytilus edulis, C) Crassostrea gigas.(○wild type, • (black) processed, circles represent real data points, fitted line from probit binary regression).