Do heterogeneous seascapes of carbonate conditions across biogeographic breaks influence divergent phenotypic plasticity in natural populations?

Aim: Understanding how environmental variability influences stress tolerance, local adaptation, and phenotypic variation among populations is a key challenge for evolutionary ecology and climate change biology. Coastal biogeographic breaks are natural laboratories to explore this fundamental research question due to the contrasting environmental conditions experienced by natural populations across these regions.

Location: In the South East Pacific (SEP) coast a major break (30º-32ºS) is characterized by extreme natural variability in seawater carbonate chemistry parameters related to temporal and spatial dynamics in upwelling events. Mollusk species that reach their range limit at this zone are exposed to naturally acidified waters that can be corrosive and impact their calcification, physiology, and fitness, making them particularly prone to the effects of ocean acidification (OA). We investigated to what extent the interplay between biogeographic breaks and local variability of sea...