Effect of Ocean acidification upon ability to adapt to climate change in Nereis species

For feeding, it has a pair of lengthy (Pettibone, 1963, p. Nereis succinea belongs to the kingdom Animalia, phylum Annelid, class Polychaeta, subclass Errantia, order Phyllodocida, suborder Nereidiformia, family Nereididae, subfamily Nereidinae, and genus Nereis (Imajima, 2003, p. Commonly Nereis succinea is omnivorous and termed as an opportunistic feeder. It is a surface feeder, which is not selective. It mainly feeds on particle-sized deposits in its habitat. That ranges from temperate to tropical marine areas. Primarily, a proboscis is utilised while feeding. In an evaluation conducted on its gut, it revealed that Nereis succinea feed on a wide array of particles sized from 20 to 300μm in diameter (Plante, et al. , 2008, p. Sediments obtained from its gut were related in size to sediments found on the surface of worm burrow mouths’ that supports its non-selectivity feature (Plante, et al. , 2008, p.

Nereis succinea feed on relatively the same size of particles, this implies that the particle size fed on is independent of the size of Nereis succinea. They also feed on allocthanous matter (Fong, 1987, p. According to Craig et al. , (2003, p. 569), Nereis succinea has the capability to graze on various plant matters.

It also uses facultative capture of minute invertebrates (Craig, et al. , 2003, p. According to Cammen (1990, p. 10), a quarter of its organic carbon requirement is obtained from microbes, the rest from direct feeding of plant substratum, and feeding of organic matter that dissolved in its habitat, and intake of meiofauna (Valiela, 1995, p. Reproduction of Nereis succinea is sexual. It undertakes external fertilization and has detached sexes. On attaining sexual maturity, each Nereis succinea changes into a nektonic heteronereid structure.

The metamorphosed nektonic heteronereid structure has a similar structural outlook to its non-reproductive structure. However, according to Detwiler et al. , (2002, 148), the parapodia is more lobate and larger in size and bears the chemoreceptors for used to detect the reproductive partner during spawning. The nektonic heteroneroids usually move up to the surface to spawn in large numbers. Once they shed their eggs, the females expire. Males also die soon after spawning. Suggestions are that, an intricate group of exogenous and chemical signals is the generator of reproductive swarming.

These exogenous signals include salinity, and temperature (Hardege, et al. , 2004, p. 1518)