EPOW - Ecology Picture of the Week

Shingle Urchin Aerial Performer

Shingle Urchin (Colobocentrotus atratus), Family Echinometridae
Maui, Hawaii, USA

Explanation:  On the edge of a rocky shoreline along the island of Maui, I discovered several echinoderms of the sea:  shingle urchins, or as they are known here in Hawaii, hāʻukeʻuke.  

Found throughout the Indo-Pacific region, including here in the Hawaiian Islands, shingle urchins are an intertidal species, clinging to rocky substrates that become exposed to the atmosphere at low tide.  
  
 

 

Interestingly, studies (Wilbur and Moran 2018) have suggested that shingle urchins become performance-limited, with lowered attachment strength, when they are submersed under water, under conditions of lower oxygen and adverse temperatures ... although they are strictly a marine-adapted species!

This means that shingle urchins are actually adapted to aerial conditions!  So as oceans warm under climate change and sea-level rise, those urchins at greater depths will be losing optimal habitat, thus experiencing greater stress and population declines and local losses ... the fate of an aerial performer!

 

Information:
     Wilbur, S.L. and A.L. Moran.  2018.  Oxygen-limited performance of the intertidal sea urchin Colobocentrotus atratus when submerged.  Journal of Experimental Marine Biology and Ecology 509:16-23. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jembe.2018.08.012.