Phenotypic Plasticity Drives Seasonal Thermal Tolerance in a Baltic Copepod

Seasonal changes in environmental conditions require substantial physiological responses for population persistence. Phenotypic plasticity is a common mechanism to tolerate these changes, but for organisms with short generation times rapid adaptation may also be a contributing factor. Here, we aimed to disentangle the impacts of adaptation from phenotypic plasticity on thermal tolerance of the calanoid copepod Acartia hudsonica collected throughout spring and summer of a single year. We used a common garden (11 °C and 18 °C) design to determine the relative impacts of plasticity versus adaptation. Acartia hudsonica were collected from five time points across the season and thermal tolerance was determined using critical thermal maximum (CT) followed by additional measurements after one generation of common garden. As sea surface temperature increased through the season, field collected individuals showed corresponding increases in thermal tolerance but decreases in body size. Despite different thermal tolerances of wild collections, common garden animals did not differ in CT within thermal treatments. Instead, there was evidence of phenotypic plasticity where higher temperatures were tolerated by the 18 °C versus the 11 °C treatment animals across all collections. Acclimation also had significant effects on body size, with higher temperatures resulting in smaller individuals, consistent with the temperature size rule. Therefore, the differences in thermal tolerance and body size observed in field collected A. hudsonica were likely driven by plasticity rather than adaptation. However, the observed decrease in body size suggests that nutrient availability and ecosystem functioning could be impacted if temperatures consistently increase with no change in copepod abundance. This is the first record of A. hudsonica in the Baltic Sea known to the authors.