Sea Slug, Climate Change Warrior

SIt is not easy for the center to be on marine mollusks by combing the long seaweed blades, according to Richele Tanner, the marine environment scientist at Chapman University in Orange, California. She has to turn her hands blind but carefully along the entire plant, and she was pressed lightly, to pick up the species she studies, the sea rabbit Taylor (Phyllaplysia Taylori). “You are at the mercy of whether you can feel a small group of grass,” says Tanner.

Marine mollusks, also called sea rabbits due to the bunny bumps on their heads, are mixed in the seaweed on which they live because of what-like small points of transparent green with white lines.

But the camouflage invertebrates are very important for the survival of seaweed. Warm water and surface flow can stimulate the nutrients of algae for the superiority and suffocation of seaweed. But the milestone passes the plant eating on these harmful algae. Brent Hughes, a marine environment scientist at Sonoma State University.

Now, Tanner and its collaborators found that the sea rabbit in Taylor may be able to withstand climate change, at least somewhat.

Human activities and climate change are once shrinking marine herbs all over the world.

In a recent study published in EcosphereTanner and their colleagues have discovered that sea rabbits are noticeably flexible for temperature changes, able to withstand the maximum temperatures ranging from 24 to 35 ° C. Surface water temperatures off the coast of the Pacific Ocean in the United States about 11 to 14 degrees Celsius, but climate models predict that ocean water temperatures will increase by 1.2 to 3.2 ° C by 2100.

The researchers also found that any of the 11 residents of the sea rabbit, which they took along the western coast of the United States, were genetically distinguished. Sea rabbits from the nearby Washington state in the north to the Moro Bay in central California, all of which are high levels of genetic diversity and appear to be part of the well -integrated adult population. Each of their ability to withstand high temperatures and its inherent genetic diversity can make them major allies in the efforts to restore seaweed, especially with the continuation of the warmth of the ocean water.

Sea herbs-occurrence, mutilation, grass-like water plants-are decisive marine environments. They store coastal carbon, provide a house for various marine creatures, reduce ocean acidification, and protect the coasts from destroyed waves. Human activities and climate change are once shrinking marine herbs around the world, as algae growth was one of the causes of losses. Looking at their role in protecting marine herbs from being overlooked by algae, Tanner says she wants to see how the changing climate can affect sea rabbits and its unique relationship with elgrass – a type of sea herb.

To test the sea guards with higher temperatures, Tanner and her team first unveiled individuals from 11 to three different temperatures in the laboratory – 13 ° C, 17 degrees Celsius, and 21 ° C – for two to three weeks. The animals detained in temperatures were higher than to withstand high temperature shocks, up to 35 ° C.

But the temperatures of the water in which they grew up – habitat temperatures – had no effect on the ability of sea rabbits to withstand high temperature shocks. The location of their residents is not seemed to be off the American West Coast or their basic genes affects the utmost temperatures that can tolerate them in the laboratory. This means that the adaptation of short laboratory laboratories to the sea rabbits was more important than the adjustments that it accumulated over the course of generations to adjust the impressive temperature.

“The animal can develop into responses to a certain temperature, because this is the highest temperature they saw in the last 100 generation,” Tanner says. “This animal does not have it. We did not find an evolutionary basis for how it is set at the highest temperature that can resist and maintain its function.” Tanner suggests that marine mollusks have a kind of thermal endure, which requires a comparison of how humans adapt to, to a lesser extent, to different seasons.

The sea rabbit in Taylor may be able to withstand climate change, at least somewhat.

“During the winter, you get used to it is cold, and you may not have to wear the largest possible number of sweets as if you had faced the same cold temperature during the summer,” Tanner explains. “If we adapt [the sea hares] To different temperatures, they can raise the maximum temperature they can tolerate. “

The high genetic diversity between the distinctive seafood groups was also unexpected. Unlike many other marine invertebrates, these marine rabbits do not contain larvae that can be swimming freely in the ocean and abandoned individuals from different population. “Many of my work were looking at how living organisms were treated, at the physiological level, with the pressures of a world that changes. But it is immediately the genetics that surprised me,” says Scott Abbom, a developmental physicist at the University of South California. “These things are supposed to separate a fairly short distance, but the inheritance mix up and down on the coast says that there is a much larger exchange than we expected.”

Tanner’s hypothesis is that the sea guards in Taylor run on the sea, and it does something called “blasphemy”. Sometimes seaweed can be physically uprooted due to storms or other disorders, and they can travel with the peripheral currents from one bay to another. Sea rabbits may go into a passenger and a colleague with individuals from the distant residents in this way.

Hughes believes that learning the amount of heat that sea rabbits can resist is an important step in managing the ecosystems of seaweed with a climate variable. “Litten, when restoring, we must think about how hot these organisms are before they die,” says Hughes. “Because if the area becomes very hot, it is not good that it is good to grow seaweed [there]. If living organisms, not only seaweed, cannot tolerate these conditions. ”

The leading image: Richelle Tanner

• Rohini Supmanam

  Spread on April 10, 2025

  Rohini Supmanamam is a biologist who turned into a scientific journalist. She loves to write about interesting creatures on our planet. SubrahManyam has a PhD from the National Center for Biological Sciences at the Tata Institute for Basic Research in India. Follow it on X (Twitter previously) Rohsubb On LinkedInAnd see its wallet here.

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