Abstract Metabolic rate (MR) usually changes (scales) out of proportion to body mass (BM) as MR = aBMb, where a is a normalisation constant and b is the scaling exponent that reflects how steep this change is. This scaling relationship is fundamental to biology, but over a century of research has provided little consensus on the value of b, and why it appears to vary among taxa and taxonomic levels. By analysing published data on fish and taking an individual-based approach to metabolic scaling, I show that variation in growth of fish under naturally restricted food availability can explain variation in within-individual (ontogenetic) b for standard (maintenance) metabolic rate (SMR) of brown trout (Salmo trutta), with the fastest growers having the steepest metabolic scaling (b ≈ 1). Moreover, I show that within-individual b can vary much more widely than previously assumed from work on different individuals or different species, from –1 to 1 for SMR among individual brown trout. The negative scaling of SMR for some individuals was caused by reductions in metabolic rate in a food limited environment, likely to maintain positive growth. This resulted in a mean within-individual b for SMR that was significantly lower than the across-individual (“static”) b, a difference that also existed for another species, cunner (Tautogolabrus adspersus). Interestingly, the wide variation in ontogenetic b for SMR among individual brown trout did not exist for maximum (active) metabolic rate (MMR) of the same fish, showing that these two key metabolic traits (SMR and MMR) can scale independently of one another. I also show that across-species (“evolutionary”) b for SMR of 134 fishes is significantly steeper (b approaching 1) than the mean ontogenetic b for the brown trout and cunner. Based on these interesting findings, I hypothesise that evolutionary and static metabolic scaling can be systematically different from ontogenetic scaling, and that the steeper evolutionary than ontogenetic scaling for fishes arises as a by-product of natural selection for fast-growing individuals with steep metabolic scaling (b ≈ 1) early in life, where size-selective mortality is high for fishes. I support this by showing that b for SMR tends to increase with natural mortality rates of fish larvae within taxa.
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10 - Adaptation and evolutionary responses to high CO2
The evolutionary history of fishes spans geological periods where atmospheric CO2 was much higher than the current-day, yet some extant species are now sensitive to high environmental CO2. Other species have adapted to live in habitats where they naturally encounter very high CO2 levels. This chapter explores the evolutionary history of fishes in relation to environmental CO2 and adaptations to high CO2 habitats. It then considers the potential for adaptive responses to predicted future CO2 levels from climate change among extant fishes. Despite a rich theory and well-developed experimental methods in quantitative genetics only a handful of studies have tested for genetic variation in CO2-sensitive traits, which might enable fish to adapt to projected future CO2 levels. This is a serious knowledge gap that needs a concerted research effort to overcome. Without basic information on genetic variation in fitness-associated traits and the strength of selection, it is not possible to make informed decisions about the impacts of elevated CO2 on fish populations over the timeframes that CO2 is changing.
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- Award ID(s):
- 1536165
- NSF-PAR ID:
- 10249934
- Editor(s):
- Grosell, Martin; Munday, Philip L.; Farrell, Anthony P.; Brauner, Colin J.
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Fish physiology
- Volume:
- 37
- ISSN:
- 1557-8011
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 369-395
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
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Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Journal Article:
- https://doi.org/10.1016/bs.fp.2019.07.006
