The Potential Role of the Giant Triton Snail, Charonia Tritonis (Gastropoda: Ranellidae) in Mitigating Populations of the Crown-Of-Thorns Starfish
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Technical Report The potential role of the giant triton snail, Charonia tritonis (Gastropoda: Ranellidae) in mitigating populations of the crown-of-thorns starfish M.R. Hall, C.A. Motti and F. Kroon The potential role of the giant triton snail, Charonia tritonis (Gastropoda: Ranellidae) in mitigating populations of the crown-of-thorns starfish M.R. Hall1, C.A. Motti1 and F. Kroon1 1 Australian Institute of Marine Science Supported by the Australian Government’s National Environmental Science Programme Project 2.1.1 Project Title © Australian Institute of Marine Science, 2017 Creative Commons Attribution The potential role of the giant triton snail, Charonia tritonis (Gastropoda: Ranellidae) in mitigating populations of the crown-of-thorns starfish is licensed by the Australian Institute of Marine Science for use under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Australia licence. For licence conditions see: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry: 978-1-925514-07-0 This report should be cited as: M.R. Hall, C.A. Motti and F. Kroon (2017) The potential role of the giant triton snail, Charonia tritonis (Gastropoda: Ranellidae) in mitigating population outbreaks of the crown-of-thorns starfish. Integrated Pest Management of Crown-of-Thorns Starfish. Report to the National Environmental Science Programme. Reef and Rainforest Research Centre Limited, Cairns (58pp.). Published by the Reef and Rainforest Research Centre on behalf of the Australian Government’s National Environmental Science Programme (NESP) Tropical Water Quality (TWQ) Hub. The Tropical Water Quality Hub is part of the Australian Government’s National Environmental Science Programme and is administered by the Reef and Rainforest Research Centre Limited (RRRC). The NESP TWQ Hub addresses water quality and coastal management in the World Heritage listed Great Barrier Reef, its catchments and other tropical waters, through the generation and transfer of world-class research and shared knowledge. This publication is copyright. The Copyright Act 1968 permits fair dealing for study, research, information or educational purposes subject to inclusion of a sufficient acknowledgement of the source. The views and opinions expressed in this publication are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the Australian Government. While reasonable effort has been made to ensure that the contents of this publication are factually correct, the Commonwealth does not accept responsibility for the accuracy or completeness of the contents, and shall not be liable for any loss or damage that may be occasioned directly or indirectly through the use of, or reliance on, the contents of this publication. Cover photographs: Female Charonia tritonis laying (left) and protecting (right) clutches of eggs in the AIMS SeaSIM; Peter Thomas-Hall (AIMS, 2016). This report is available for download from the NESP Tropical Water Quality Hub website: http://www.nesptropical.edu.au The potential role of Charonia tritonis in mitigating population outbreaks of the crown-of-thorns starfish CONTENTS Contents .................................................................................................................................. i List of Tables .......................................................................................................................... ii List of Figures ......................................................................................................................... ii Acronyms .............................................................................................................................. iii Executive Summary .............................................................................................................. 1 1.0 Introduction ..................................................................................................................... 2 2.0 Predators of CoTS ........................................................................................................... 4 3.0 Predation Ecology ........................................................................................................... 8 4.0 General Biology of Charonia ...........................................................................................11 4.1 Species taxonomy and nomenclature .........................................................................11 4.2 Appearance and morphology ......................................................................................13 4.3 Distribution, habitat and abundance ............................................................................14 4.4 Growth, development and morphological relationships ...............................................15 4.5 Courtship and Mating ..................................................................................................23 4.6 Reproduction ..............................................................................................................23 4.7 Parental Care ..............................................................................................................26 4.8 Foraging, diet and nutrition .........................................................................................26 4.9 Predators, parasites and threats .................................................................................29 5.0 Management potential of Charonia tritonis .....................................................................32 5.1 Restocking Potential ...................................................................................................32 5.2 Aquaculture Potential ..................................................................................................33 6.0 Conclusion .....................................................................................................................36 7.0 Recommendations for future research and management directions ...............................37 References ...........................................................................................................................39 i Hall et al. LIST OF TABLES Table 1: Predators known to prey on healthy live juvenile and adult CoTS. .................. 5 Table 2: Primary superfamilies and families of the Hypsogastropoda clade containing the Littorinimorpha and Neogastropoda. Common name, diversity of taxa and primary diet are shown. .................................................................................12 Table 3: Genera of the subfamily Cymatiinae within the family Ranellidae, with common name, number of species (Liggia 2015), and general diet (Taylor 1998). Number of species includes accepted species with presently unaccepted species shown in brackets. ....................................................................................................13 Table 4: Inducers of metamorphosis and settlement for gastropod veliger larvae. .......21 Table 5: Reproductive statistics for C. tritonis reported in published studies from captivity breeding programs.........................................................................................24 Table 6: Major groups and species of marine molluscs which are produced at commercial scale through aquaculture. From FAO (2016) and (Castell 2012). c carnivore, h herbivore, d detritivore, f filter feeder ............................................33 LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1: Distribution and range of the Charonia genus. ...............................................14 Figure 2: Sites of collection of C. tritonis from Australia. ...............................................15 Figure 3: Growth and development of early life history stages of the giant triton, Charonia tritonis. Triton egg laying capsules in situ (a) and in the SeaSim laboratory at AIMS (b). Development of embryo within the egg capsule at day 3 (c), 8 (d), 12 (e) and 22 (f). Development of veligers post-hatching at day 56, showing empty guts with yolk reserves (g), gut filled with phytoplankton (h), and velum extended (i). Newly settled juvenile of Charonis lampas (j) (Photo: Everett Turner). ......17 Figure 4: Schematic of primary anatomy of gastropod veliver. Adapted from Rodriguez- Babio and Thiriot-Quievreux (1974). ..............................................................18 Figure 5: Veliger larvae of Cymatium chlorostomum from Bermuda showing the extreme extension of velum in teleplanic form. (a) Veliger, 3.5 mm long, (b) veliger shell, 4 mm long, (c,d,e) metamorphosed shell from veliger, 4.5 mm long (Lebour 1945). ............................................................................................................19 Figure 6: Growth and development of protoconchs and larval radula of the Ranellidae collected in plankton tows. Veliger larval shell of Charonia variegata (upper left), late veliger larvae of Cymatium nicobaricum (upper middle), late veliger larvae of Charonia sp. (upper right), protoconch of C. variegata (middle left), protoconch of Cymatium intermedium (middle middle) and dorsal view of protoconch as part of post-metamorphic Cymatium sp. larva. (middle right). Radula of larval C. lampas (bottom panels). From (Scheltema 1971a; Beu & Kay 1988; Waren & Bouchet 1990). ...............................................................20 ii The potential role of Charonia tritonis in mitigating population outbreaks of the crown-of-thorns starfish ACRONYMS AIMS ............. Australian Institute of Marine Science CoTS ............