This study investigates how food availability aligns with nutritional requirements of the snail Lunella smaragda , a potential biological control agent for managing biofouling in recreational vessel hubs. Biofouling communities were assessed during two contrasting seasons to gain insights into the quantity and quality of food available for agent consumption. Nutritional availability was higher in spring/summer and increased wi...

Green‐lipped mussel ( Perna canaliculus ) aquaculture is vulnerable to environmental changes, which are increasingly being studied to pinpoint physiological, economic and ecological threats. This study utilised a targeted liquid chromatography‐mass spectrometry metabolomics approach, focusing on the central carbon metabolism, to examine the metabolic response of P. canaliculus haemolymph to heat stress (30°C) and multi‐point r...

The Greenshell™ mussel, Perna canaliculus , is the most lucrative aquaculture species in New Zealand; however, losses of commercial juvenile mussels (spat) are common and can drastically reduce the yield of adults. Modification of seeding density is a potential method to manage loss of spat (~ 1–20-mm shell length), by reducing biofouling and intraspecific competition. Understanding the stress responses of spat in production s...

The substantial loss of seed mussels during the early stages of longline aquaculture—often exceeding 95%—is a major issue that erodes the security and profitability of production while limiting the sustainable expansion of this industry in many parts of the world. There are many biological, environmental and procedural factors that potentially cause seed losses. The present understanding of these factors is highly limited, bas...

The timing of birth has marked impacts on early life and early development of newborns in many species. In seasonal environments, early‐born offspring often survive and grow better than late‐born offspring, but despite the long‐lasting effects of early conditions on life history traits, the influence of birth date on fitness has rarely been investigated for long‐lived species. In this study, we analyzed both the short‐ and lon...

How mothers allocate resources to offspring is central to understanding life history strategies. High quality mothers are predicted to favour investment in sons over daughters when to do so increases inclusive fitness. This is the case in ungulates with polygynous mating systems, where reproductive success is more variable among males than females, but information is scarce on sex allocation in less polygynous species. Here, f...