Effect of a cold event on population and community of pit-inhabiting sea urchins in Western Pacific coasts

Coastal tide pools in southern Japan are inhabited by the rock-boring sea urchin Echinostrephus molaris, which excavate pits in the substrate. These pits are subsequently used by non-boring sea urchins such as Anthocidaris crassispina and Echinometra sp. B, and the recolonized pits are often inhabit...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of the Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom 2021-08, Vol.101 (5), p.819-826
Main Authors: Yamamori, Luna, Kato, Makoto
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Algae
Cold
Commensalism
Coral reefs
Echinoidea
Echinometra
Invertebrates
Marine invertebrates
Marine molluscs
Migrations
Mortality
Occupancy
Pits
Population
Population number
Recovery
Sea urchins
Snails
Species
Substrates
Tide pools
Tropical climate
Turnover rate
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Summary:Coastal tide pools in southern Japan are inhabited by the rock-boring sea urchin Echinostrephus molaris, which excavate pits in the substrate. These pits are subsequently used by non-boring sea urchins such as Anthocidaris crassispina and Echinometra sp. B, and the recolonized pits are often inhabited by a commensal limpet-like trochid snail species, Broderipia iridescens. We explored the population and community dynamics of these sea urchins and the limpet-like snail by monitoring occupancy of 512 pits in tide pools in Shirahama, Japan from May 2017–May 2019. Initially, nearly all pits were occupied by any one of the three sea urchin species, but an unusual cold event in February 2018 caused a mass die off of these sea urchins. After this event, occupancy decreased from 99% to 15%, and the tropical species Echinometra sp. B disappeared from the study pools. We observed slow population recovery of E. molaris and A. crassispina, provably via migration of sub-adults from the subtidal zone. Turnover rate of the pit-occupying sea urchin species was
ISSN:0025-3154
1469-7769
DOI:10.1017/S0025315421000680