title: Importance of plasticity and local adaptation for coping with changing salinity in coastal areas: a test case with barnacles in the Baltic Sea.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Salinity plays an important role in shaping coastal marine communities. Near-future climate predictions indicate that salinity will decrease in many shallow coastal areas due to increased precipitation; however, few studies have addressed this issue. The ability of ecosystems to cope with future changes will depend on species' capacities to acclimatise or adapt to new environmental conditions. Here, we investigated the effects of a strong salinity gradient (the Baltic Sea system--Baltic, Kattegat, Skagerrak) on plasticity and adaptations in the euryhaline barnacle Balanus improvisus. We used a common-garden approach, where multiple batches of newly settled barnacles from each of three different geographical areas along the Skagerrak-Baltic salinity gradient were exposed to corresponding native salinities (6, 15 and 30 PSU), and phenotypic traits including mortality, growth, shell strength, condition index and reproductive maturity were recorded.
  
  
  RESULTS
  We found that B. improvisus was highly euryhaline, but had highest growth and reproductive maturity at intermediate salinities. We also found that low salinity had negative effects on other fitness-related traits including initial growth and shell strength, although mortality was also lowest in low salinity. Overall, differences between populations in most measured traits were weak, indicating little local adaptation to salinity. Nonetheless, we observed some population-specific responses--notably that populations from high salinity grew stronger shells in their native salinity compared to the other populations, possibly indicating adaptation to differences in local predation pressure.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Our study shows that B. improvisus is an example of a true brackish-water species, and that plastic responses are more likely than evolutionary tracking in coping with future changes in coastal salinity.
authors.affiliation: Department of Biological and Environmental Sciences-Tjärnö, University of Gothenburg, S-45296 Strömstad, Sweden. anna-lisa.wrange@bioenv.gu.se.
authors.forename: Anna-Lisa
authors.initials: AL
authors.lastname: Wrange
authors.forename: Carl
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: André
authors.forename: Torbjörn
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Lundh
authors.forename: Ulrika
authors.initials: U
authors.lastname: Lind
authors.forename: Anders
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Blomberg
authors.forename: Per J
authors.initials: PJ
authors.lastname: Jonsson
authors.forename: Jon N
authors.initials: JN
authors.lastname: Havenhand
mesh_terms: D000064:Acclimatization; D000222:Adaptation, Physiological; D060105:Animal Shells / Q000737:chemistry / Q000502:physiology*; D000818:Animals; D017753:Ecosystem; D009792:Oceans and Seas; D010641:Phenotype; D012098:Reproduction; D054712:Salinity; D012623:Seawater / Q000737:chemistry*; D001468:Thoracica / Q000254:growth & development / Q000502:physiology*