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Ecological and genetic evidence for impaired sexual reproduction and induced clonality in the hydroid Sertularia cupressina (Cnidaria: Hydrozoa) on commercial scallop grounds in Atlantic Canada

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Abstract

Colonial epifauna are vulnerable to the effects of bottom fishing, but impacts on the life histories of these non-target animals have not been examined extensively. Dredging potentially impairs sexual reproduction by invoking regeneration and induces clonality by severing colonies or through the abortion of damaged modules. This study investigated the potential for commercial-scale scallop dredging to alter sexual and asexual (“clonal”) reproduction in the hydroid Sertularia cupressina. In total, 1,071 colonies from 104 epizoic microhabitats (upper valves of live scallops relatively undisturbed by fishing) and 75 epilithic microhabitats (cobbles more severely disturbed by fishing) were collected from 53 to 94-m depths in the Bay of Fundy (Atlantic Canada). Colony abundance, injury frequency (proportion of colonies with sealed, snapped off stems), percentage of fertile colonies and sexual fecundity (number of gonophores and gonophore dimensions) were measured on all substrata. Ten randomly amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD) primers were used to estimate clonal diversity. Field experiments found no significant effect of microhabitat differences between scallop and cobble substrata on fecundity and clonality in S. cupressina, while experimentally-induced injuries suppressed the percent of fertile colonies. On the fishing grounds, colonies on scallop valves were more abundant and sexually fertile than their counterparts on cobble, and all were sexually derived. In contrast, colonies on cobbles had a greater percentage of injury, were less fertile and were frequently clonally-derived. Impacts of fishing-related injuries on reproduction in colonial epifauna have been overlooked, yet the long-term consequences of such impacts could result in reduced adaptability, recruitment and recovery potential of these and dependent organisms.

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Acknowledgements

Funds were provided by the Natural Science and Engineering Research Council of Canada in a post-graduate scholarship and a Canadian Department of Fisheries and Oceans supplement to L.-A. H., and a research grant to E.K. Additional funding was considerately provided by Cliff Cunningham and Dale Calder through the Partnerships for Enhancing Expertise in Taxonomy program (NSF DEB–# 9978131). We would like to thank Michael Hart and two anonymous reviewers for their comments on this manuscript. We would also like to thank Robert Scheibling for his help designing the field microhabitat and injury experiments. Mark Lundy and Dale Roddick kindly provided space on board the C.C.G.S. “J.L.Hart”, and we would also like to thank her captain and crew for their hard work.

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  1. L.-A. Henry

    Present address: Scottish Association for Marine Science, Dunstaffnage Marine Laboratory, Oban, Argyll, PA37 1QA, UK

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  1. Department of Biology, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, B3H 4J1, Canada

    L.-A. Henry & E. L. R. Kenchington

  2. Invertebrate Fisheries Division, Bedford Institute of Oceanography, 1 Challenger Drive, Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, B2A 4Y2, Canada

    E. L. R. Kenchington

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Communicated by R.J. Thompson, St. John’s

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Henry, LA., Kenchington, E.L.R. Ecological and genetic evidence for impaired sexual reproduction and induced clonality in the hydroid Sertularia cupressina (Cnidaria: Hydrozoa) on commercial scallop grounds in Atlantic Canada. Marine Biology 145, 1107–1118 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00227-004-1400-0

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