Evolved differences in energy metabolism and growth dictate the impacts of ocean acidification on abalone aquaculture

Ocean acidification (OA) poses a major threat to marine ecosystems and shellfish aquaculture. A promising mitigation strategy is the identification and breeding of shellfish varieties exhibiting resilience to acidification stress. We experimentally compared the effects of OA on two populations of red abalone (Haliotis rufescens), a marine mollusck important to fisheries and global aquaculture. Results from our experiments simulating captive aquaculture conditions demonstrated that abalone sourced from a strong upwelling region were tolerant of ongoing OA, whereas a captive-raised population sourced from a region of weaker upwelling exhibited significant mortality and vulnerability to OA. This difference was linked to population-specific variation in the maternal provisioning of lipids to offspring, with a positive correlation between lipid concentrations and survival under OA. This relationship also persisted in experiments on second-generation animals, and larval lipid consumption rate...