Biochemical changes throughout early- and middle-stage of embryogenesis in lobsters (Homarus americanus) under varying thermal regimes
- Published
- Accepted
- Subject Areas
- Aquaculture, Fisheries and Fish Science, Biochemistry, Developmental Biology, Zoology
- Keywords
- lobster, egg development, ovigerous, Gulf of Maine, biochemical analyses, H. americanus, vitellogenesis
- Copyright
- © 2018 Goldstein et al.
- Licence
- This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, reproduction and adaptation in any medium and for any purpose provided that it is properly attributed. For attribution, the original author(s), title, publication source (PeerJ Preprints) and either DOI or URL of the article must be cited.
- Cite this article
- 2018. Biochemical changes throughout early- and middle-stage of embryogenesis in lobsters (Homarus americanus) under varying thermal regimes. PeerJ Preprints 6:e26741v1 https://doi.org/10.7287/peerj.preprints.26741v1
Abstract
Most marine crustacean eggs contain a full complement of nutritional resources that fuel the growth and metabolic processes over the course of their development. In terms of biochemical constituents, lipids and proteins play pivotal and central roles in these processes and, accordingly, have been studied extensively in crustaceans. Given the propensity of some ovigerous (egg-bearing) American lobsters (Homarus americanus) to undergo seasonal inshore-to-offshore migrations, thereby exposing their eggs to varying thermal regimes, this study’s goal was to assess egg quality over their course of development by documenting changes in total lipids, proteins, and egg size (volume) in lobsters subjected to one of three simulated thermal regimes (inshore, offshore, constant (12°C), N = 5/trt, 15 total) in the laboratory and sampled at five discrete time intervals. Total egg lipids showed a marked decrease over time (r2adj = 0.85, P < 0.0001), early in the fall (average = -26%) and late spring (-62%), compared with stark increases in proteins over the same period (r2adj = 0.63, P < 0.0001, averages = 60%, 34%, fall and spring). Although there were no significant differences in total lipid or protein values (or egg sizes) between eggs exposed to inshore and offshore temperatures (P > 0.05), differences occurred in eggs exposed to a constant temperature, and they hatched almost three months sooner than inshore or offshore ones. Seasonal temperature fluctuations also appear to control the rates of biochemical processes in lobster eggs but may be confounded by other variables.
Author Comment
This is a submission to PeerJ for review.
Supplemental Information
There are the compiled egg data (raw)
Egg data includes: egg dry-weights, egg volumes, lipid, and protein.