Flight or fight: different strategies of intertidal periwinkle Littoraria sinensis coping with high temperature across populations.

Abstract

Intertidal organisms usually live near their upper thermal limits, and are vulnerable to future global warming. As a vital response to thermal stress, thermoregulatory strategy in physiological and behavioral performance is essential for organisms coping with thermal stress and surviving the changing world. To investigate the relationship between the thermoregulatory strategy and habitat temperature, in the present study, we comparatively investigated the thermal responsive strategy among different geographic populations of the supralittoral snail Littoraria sinensis by determining snails' cardiac function and behavioral performance. Our results indicated that populations inhabiting high ambient temperatures had higher sublethal temperatures (i.e. Arrhenius breakpoint temperatures, ABTs, the temperature at which the heart rate shapely decreases with further heating) and lethal temperatures (i.e. Flatline temperatures, FLTs, the temperature at which heart rate ceases), and behaved less actively (e.g. shorter moving distances and shorter moving time) in the face of high and rising temperatures-a physiological fight strategy. On the other hand, populations at relatively low ambient temperatures had relatively lower physiological upper thermal limits with lower ABTs and FLTs and moved more actively in the face of high and rising temperatures-a behavioral flight strategy. These results demonstrate that the thermoregulatory strategies of the snails are closely related to their habitat temperatures and are different among populations surviving divergent thermal environments.