National Committee on Marine Sciences (NCMS)
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- Ammonium and phosphate excretion in three common echinoderms from Philippine coral reefsDy, Danilo T.; Yap, Helen T. (Elsevier BV, 2000-08)The ammonium and phosphate excretion and oxygen consumption of three species of echinoderms (Tripneustes gratilla, Protoreaster nodosus and Ophiorachna incrassata) commonly encountered in Philippine coral reefs were investigated in relation to time of day (i.e. daytime between 10:00 and 12:00 h vs. nighttime between 22:00 and 24:00 h) and their recent feeding history (i.e. recently-collected vs. short-term starvation for 3±1 days). The experiment used whole organism incubations and followed a nested hierarchical design. Ammonium excretion rates were 1447±310 nmol g−1 DW h−1 (mean±S.E., n=24) for T. gratilla, 361±33 for O. incrassata and 492±38 for P. nodosus. Ammonium excretion differed significantly among species, time of incubation and recent feeding history. Interaction between species and recent feeding history was also significant. The organisms excreted more ammonium during daytime except for starved specimens of O. incrassata. In addition, animals that were starved in the laboratory for a few days had a tendency to excrete more ammonium than recently-collected specimens. Phosphate excretion rates were 25±13 nmol g−1 DW h−1 for T. gratilla, 10±2 for O. incrassata and 4±1 for P. nodosus. There were no significant differences in phosphate excretion among the three species of echinoderms, their recent feeding history and time of day. Oxygen consumption rates were 286±24 μg O2 g−1 DW h−1 for T. gratilla, 64±3 for O. incrassata and 54±3 for P. nodosus. Oxygen consumption differed significantly among species and recent feeding history but differed only slightly with time of incubation. There was a significant correlation between oxygen consumption and ammonium excretion (r=0.48, P=0.018), and between oxygen consumption and phosphate excretion (r=0.41, P=0.047) for T. gratilla. The nutrient excretion by tropical echinoderms is another pathway by which inorganic nutrients are regenerated in coral reef communities. However, the quantity of nutrients excreted is dependent on the species of echinoderms, their nutritional status and time of day.
- Genetic connectivity and diversity between tropical and subtropical populations of the tropical horned sea star Protoreaster nodosus in the northwest PacificNakajima, Yuichi; Yasuda, Nina; Matsuki, Yu; Arriesgado, Dan M.; Fortes, Miguel D.; Uy, Wilfredo H.; Campos, Wilfredo L.; Nadaoka, Kazuo; Lian, Chunlan (Springer, 2024-06-01)Seagrass beds are ecologically and economically important coastal ecosystems, and seagrass-associated organisms are a key part of their biodiversity. Marine organisms that reproduce through broadcast spawning are likely to have less genetic differentiation among populations than those that use other modes of reproduction, but this has not been well studied. Here, we investigated the genetic diversity, genetic differentiation, and migration patterns of the seagrass-associated sea star Protoreaster nodosus across 12 sites spanning approximately 2500 km from the Ryukyu Archipelago, Japan, to the Philippines. We genotyped 405 individuals by using seven microsatellite loci and analyzed allelic richness and expected heterozygosity as indices of genetic diversity. Of these two indices, only expected heterozygosity decreased slightly with increasing latitude. These results suggest that genetic diversity has not clearly decreased, even in the isolated Ryukyu Archipelago populations. Geographic distance was significantly correlated with genetic differentiation (pairwise FST: − 0.005 to 0.049). However, populations in the Ryukyu Archipelago and the Philippines showed relatively low genetic structuring and the pairwise genetic differentiation between these regions was often non-significant. Analysis of historical migration rates showed bidirectional north–south migration, which appears to be influenced by the Kuroshio Current and its countercurrents.We thank members of the project ‘Coastal Ecosystem Conservation and Adaptive Management under Local and Global Environmental Impacts in the Philippines’ (CECAM project: https://sites.google.com/view/cecam-project).