Factors affecting early life-history processes in marine benthic invertebrates

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Invertebrate organisms that live on the seafloor, such as sea stars, sea urchins, crabs, lobsters, clams and mussels, have complex life cycles. As adults, they live and feed on the seafloor, but they produce larvae which may spend from a few hours to months in the water column, being carried around by currents. After they mature, larvae move near the seafloor, attach to it and, following a sequence of morphological and physiological changes, turn into juveniles. These juveniles grow into reproductive adults. The number of new recruits that return to the adult populations will depend on the number of larvae that survive the period spent in the water column, migrate to the seafloor and transition successfully into juveniles. Although we understand the factors that affect survival of adults because of their relatively large size and accessibility of their habitat, we know less about larval and juvenile survival. Our research will focus on factors that influence larval and juvenile survival, as well as the transition between these life history stages. In a coastal embayment, we will sample concurrently larvae and juveniles and examine how relationships between the two stages vary over time and across space, for different species. We will also track larvae and attempt to measure rates of mortality using different approaches. In the laboratory, we will conduct experiments to measure the effects of temperature and larval behavior on predation. We will also measure larval supply and attempt to estimate connectivity among different populations of benthic invertebrates in the deep sea. Understanding the processes that occur at these early life history stages, as well as the linkages between stages, is important for the successful management of invertebrate species and fisheries, and the success of populations in marine protected areas.