The art of Asia

23 pages, plus plates. Title continued: a paper read at a joint meeting of the China Society and the Japan Society, held at Caxton Hall, on Wednesday, November 24, 1915https://digitalrepository.trincoll.edu/moore/1036/thumbnail.jp

Temporal fluctuations in seawater pCO<inf>2</inf> may be as important as mean differences when determining physiological sensitivity in natural systems

Most studies assessing the impactsofocean acidification (OA) onbenthic marine invertebrates have used stable mean pH/pCO2 levelsto highlight variation in the physiological sensitivities in a range of taxa. However, many marine environments experience natural fluctuations in carbonate chemistry, and to date little attempt has been made to understand the effect of naturally fluctuating seawater pCO2 (pCO2sw) on the physiological capacity of organisms to maintain acid-base homeostasis. Here, for the first time, we exposed two species of sea urchin with different acid-base tolerances, Paracentrotus lividus and Arbacia lixula, to naturally fluctuating pCO2sw conditions at shallow water CO2 seep systems (Vulcano, Italy) and assessed their acid-base responses. Both sea urchin species experienced fluctuations in extracellular coelomic fluid pH, pCO2, and [HCO-3] (pHe, pCO2e, and [HCO-3]e, respectively) in line with fluctuations in pCO2sw. The less tolerant species, P. lividus, had the greatest capacity for [HCO-3]e buffering in response to acute pCO2sw fluctuations, but it also experienced greater extracellular hypercapnia and acidification and was thus unabletofully compensate for acid-basedisturbances. Conversely, themore tolerant A.lixula reliedonnon-bicarbonate protein buffering and greater respiratory control. In the light of these findings, we discuss the possible energetic consequences of increased reliance on bicarbonate buffering activity in P. lividus compared with A. lixula and how these differing physiological responses to acute fluctuations in pCO2sw may be as important as chronic responses to mean changes in pCO2sw when considering how CO2 emissions will affect survival and success of marine organisms within naturally assembled systems

Letter from Laurence Binyon, Streatley, Berkshire, England, to Elizabeth Wheeler Manwaring, Wellesley College, Wellesley, Massachusetts : autograph manuscript signed, 1933?

Concerning a readinghttps://repository.wellesley.edu/autographletters/1290/thumbnail.jp

Letter from Laurence Binyon, Cambridge, Massachusetts, to Constance Grosvenor Alexander : autograph manuscript signed, 1934 January 28

Gives directions on how to get hold of various slides and photographshttps://repository.wellesley.edu/autographletters/1293/thumbnail.jp

Letter from Laurence Binyon, Cambridge, Massachusetts, to Elizabeth Wheeler Manwaring, Wellesley College, Wellesley, Massachusetts : autograph manuscript signed, 1933 October 11

Planning Binyon\u27s forthcoming reading at Wellesley Collegehttps://repository.wellesley.edu/autographletters/1292/thumbnail.jp

The importance of inter‐individual variation in predicting species' responses to global change drivers

Inter‐individual variation in phenotypic traits has long been considered as "noise" rather than meaningful phenotypic variation, with biological studies almost exclusively generating and reporting average responses for populations and species' aver‐ age responses. Here, we compare the use of an individual approach in the investigation of extracellular acid-base regulation by the purple sea urchin Paracentrotus lividus challenged with elevated pCO2 and temperature conditions, with a more traditional approach which generates and formally compares mean values. We detected a high level of inter‐individual variation in acid-base regulation parameters both within and between treatments. Comparing individual and mean values for the first (apparent) dissociation constant of the coelomic fluid for individual sea urchins resulted in substantially different (calculated) acid-base parameters, and models with stronger statistical support. While the approach using means showed that coelomic pCO2 was influenced by seawater pCO2 and temperature combined, the individual approach indicated that it was in fact seawater temperature in isolation that had a significant effect on coelomic pCO2. On the other hand, coelomic [HCO3−] appeared to be primarily affected by seawater pCO2, and less by seawater temperature, irrespective of the approach adopted. As a consequence, we suggest that individual variation in physiological traits needs to be considered, and where appropriate taken into ac‐ count, in global change biology studies. It could be argued that an approach reliant on mean values is a "procedural error." It produces an artefact, that is, a population's mean phenotype. While this may allow us to conduct relatively simple statistical analyses, it will not in all cases reflect, or take into account, the degree of (physiological) diversity present in natural populations