Meta-analysis reveals an extreme "decline effect" in the impacts of ocean acidification on fish behavior

Ocean acidification-decreasing oceanic pH resulting from the uptake of excess atmospheric CO2-has the potential to affect marine life in the future. Among the possible consequences, a series of studies on coral reef fish suggested that the direct effects of acidification on fish behavior may be extreme and have broad ecological ramifications. Recent studies documenting a lack of effect of experimental ocean acidification on fish behavior, however, call this prediction into question. Indeed, the phenomenon of decreasing effect sizes over time is not uncommon and is typically referred to as the "decline effect." Here, we explore the consistency and robustness of scientific evidence over the past decade regarding direct effects of ocean acidification on fish behavior. Using a systematic review and meta-analysis of 91 studies empirically testing effects of ocean acidification on fish behavior, we provide quantitative evidence that the research to date on this topic is characterized by a decline effect, where large effects in initial studies have all but disappeared in subsequent studies over a decade. The decline effect in this field cannot be explained by 3 likely biological explanations, including increasing proportions of studies examining (1) cold-water species; (2) nonolfactory-associated behaviors; and (3) nonlarval life stages. Furthermore, the vast majority of studies with large effect sizes in this field tend to be characterized by low sample sizes, yet are published in high-impact journals and have a disproportionate influence on the field in terms of citations. We contend that ocean acidification has a negligible direct impact on fish behavior, and we advocate for improved approaches to minimize the potential for a decline effect in future avenues of research

Health of farmed fish: its relation to fish welfare and its utility as welfare indicator

This brief review focuses on health and biological function as cornerstones of fish welfare. From the function-based point of view, good welfare is reflected in the ability of the animal to cope with infectious and non-infectious stressors, thereby maintaining homeostasis and good health, whereas stressful husbandry conditions and protracted suffering will lead to the loss of the coping ability and, thus, to impaired health. In the first part of the review, the physiological processes through which stressful husbandry conditions modulate health of farmed fish are examined. If fish are subjected to unfavourable husbandry conditions, the resulting disruption of internal homeostasis necessitates energy-demanding physiological adjustments (allostasis/acclimation). The ensuing energy drain leads to trade-offs with other energy-demanding processes such as the functioning of the primary epithelial barriers (gut, skin, gills) and the immune system. Understanding of the relation between husbandry conditions, allostatic responses and fish health provides the basis for the second theme developed in this review, the potential use of biological function and health parameters as operational welfare indicators (OWIs). Advantages of function- and health-related parameters are that they are relatively straightforward to recognize and to measure and are routinely monitored in most aquaculture units, thereby providing feasible tools to assess fish welfare under practical farming conditions. As the efforts to improve fish welfare and environmental sustainability lead to increasingly diverse solutions, in particular integrated production, it is imperative that we have objective OWIs to compare with other production forms, such as high-density aquaculture. However, to receive the necessary acceptance for legislation, more robust scientific backing of the health- and function-related OWIs is urgently neede

Aerobic scope protection reduces ectotherm growth under warming

1. Temperature has a dramatic effect on the physiology of ectothermic animals, impacting most of their biology. When temperatures increase above optimal for an animal, their growth gradually decreases. The main mechanism behind this growth rate reduction is unknown. 2. Here, we suggest the 'aerobic scope protection' hypothesis as a mechanistic explanation for the reduction in growth. 3. After a meal, metabolic rate, and hence oxygen consumption rate, transiently increase in a process called specific dynamic action (SDA). At warmer temperatures, the SDA response usually becomes temporally compressed, leading to a higher peak oxygen consumption rate. This peak in oxygen consumption rate risks taking up much of the animal's aerobic scope (the difference between resting and maximum rates of oxygen consumption), which would leave little residual aerobic scope for other aerobic functions. 4. We propose that water-breathing ectothermic animals will protect their postprandial residual aerobic scope by reducing meal sizes in order to regulate the peak SDA response during times of warming, leading to reductions in growth. 5. This hypothesis is consistent with the published literature on fishes, and we provide predictions that can be tested.Peer reviewe

Ocean Acidification Effects on Atlantic Cod Larval Survival and Recruitment to the Fished Population

-How fisheries will be impacted by climate change is far from understood. While some fish populations may be able to escape global warming via range shifts, they cannot escape ocean acidification (OA), an inevitable consequence of the dissolution of anthropogenic carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions in marine waters. How ocean acidification affects population dynamics of commercially important fish species is critical for adapting management practices of exploited fish populations. Ocean acidification has been shown to impair fish larvae’s sensory abilities, affect the morphology of otoliths, cause tissue damage and cause behavioural changes. Here, we obtain first experimental mortality estimates for Atlantic cod larvae under OA and incorporate these effects into recruitment models. End-of-century levels of ocean acidification (~1100 μatm according to the IPCC RCP 8.5) resulted in a doubling of daily mortality rates compared to present-day CO2 concentrations during the first 25 days post hatching (dph), a critical phase for population recruitment. These results were consistent under different feeding regimes, stocking densities and in two cod populations (Western Baltic and Barents Sea stock). When mortality data were included into Ricker-type stock-recruitment models, recruitment was reduced to an average of 8 and 24% of current recruitment for the two populations, respectively. Our results highlight the importance of including vulnerable early life stages when addressing effects of climate change on fish stocks

Reduced physiological plasticity in a fish adapted to stable temperatures

Publisher Copyright: Copyright © 2022 the Author(s).Plasticity can allow organisms to maintain consistent performance across a wide range of environmental conditions. However, it remains largely unknown how costly plasticity is and whether a trade-off exists between plasticity and performance under optimal conditions. Biological rates generally increase with temperature, and to counter that effect, fish use physiological plasticity to adjust their biochemical and physiological functions. Zebrafish in the wild encounter large daily and seasonal temperature fluctuations, suggesting they should display high physiological plasticity. Conversely, laboratory zebrafish have been at optimal temperatures with low thermal fluctuations for over 150 generations. We treated this domestication as an evolution experiment and asked whether this has reduced the physiological plasticity of laboratory fish compared to their wild counterparts. We measured a diverse range of phenotypic traits, from gene expression through physiology to behavior, in wild and laboratory zebrafish acclimated to 15 temperatures from 10 °C to 38 °C. We show that adaptation to the laboratory environment has had major effects on all levels of biology. Laboratory fish show reduced plasticity and are thus less able to counter the direct effects of temperature on key traits like metabolic rates and thermal tolerance, and this difference is detectable down to gene expression level. Rapid selection for faster growth in stable laboratory environments appears to have carried with it a trade-off against physiological plasticity in captive zebrafish compared with their wild counterparts.Peer reviewe

Oxygen- and capacity-limited thermal tolerance: blurring ecology and physiology

No abstract available

Influence of Ocean Acidification on a Natural Winter-to-Summer Plankton Succession : First Insights from a Long-Term Mesocosm Study Draw Attention to Periods of Low Nutrient Concentrations

Every year, the oceans absorb about 30% of anthropogenic carbon dioxide (CO2) leading to a re-equilibration of the marine carbonate system and decreasing seawater pH. Today, there is increasing awareness that these changes-summarized by the term ocean acidification (OA)-could differentially affect the competitive ability of marine organisms, thereby provoking a restructuring of marine ecosystems and biogeochemical element cycles. In winter 2013, we deployed ten pelagic mesocosms in the Gullmar Fjord at the Swedish west coast in order to study the effect of OA on plankton ecology and biogeochemistry under close to natural conditions. Five of the ten mesocosms were left unperturbed and served as controls (similar to 380 mu atm pCO(2)), whereas the others were enriched with CO2-saturated water to simulate realistic end-of-the-century carbonate chemistry conditions (mu 760 mu atm pCO(2)). We ran the experiment for 113 days which allowed us to study the influence of high CO2 on an entire winter-to-summer plankton succession and to investigate the potential of some plankton organisms for evolutionary adaptation to OA in their natural environment. This paper is the first in a PLOS collection and provides a detailed overview on the experimental design, important events, and the key complexities of such a "long-term mesocosm" approach. Furthermore, we analyzed whether simulated end-of-the-century carbonate chemistry conditions could lead to a significant restructuring of the plankton community in the course of the succession. At the level of detail analyzed in this overview paper we found that CO2-induced differences in plankton community composition were non-detectable during most of the succession except for a period where a phytoplankton bloom was fueled by remineralized nutrients. These results indicate: (1) Long-term studies with pelagic ecosystems are necessary to uncover OA-sensitive stages of succession. (2) Plankton communities fueled by regenerated nutrients may be more responsive to changing carbonate chemistry than those having access to high inorganic nutrient concentrations and may deserve particular attention in future studies.Peer reviewe

The intestinal epithelium of salmonids : transepithelial transport, barrier function and bacterial interactions

The salmonid intestinal epithelium is important for growth and health of the fish. The epithelium is exposed to a multitude of internal and external factors that can influence its function. During the parr-smolt transformation and subsequent seawater transfer, the epithelium adapts for an osmoregulatory role and the fish starts drinking seawater (SW). Endocrine signals increases the intestinal water uptake partly through an up-regulation of Na+,K+-ATPase activity. It is shown that the epithelial paracellular permeability decrease concurrent with the increase in water transport, suggesting that water flow is directed from a paracellular to a more transcellular route. The rational for this could be the increase in epithelial exposure to the environment at SW entrance. Tightening the paracellular route could be a mechanism to reduce paracellular transfer of harmful substances and pathogens. A major salmonid pathogen is the bacterium Aeromonas salmonicida, which cause losses in both aquaculture and in wild populations. It is not known, however, by which route the A. salmonicida enters the fish. A. salmonicida has been positively demonstrated in the intestinal lumen but it has been controversial whether or not the bacteria cross the epithelial barriers. It is demonstrated that A. salmonicida can translocate across the intestinal barrier, indicating the intestine as a functional route for bacterial infection in salmonids. It is concluded that A. salmonicida employs many virulence mechanisms, such as exotoxins, endotoxin and cell bound factors, to disrupts epithelial morphology and function and promote translocation. During the later phases of parr-smolt transformation the epithelial barrier integrity decreased and translocation of pathogens increased. The increased disease susceptibility during this life stage could thus partly be caused by a decreased barrier function. Vegetable lipids are used as replacement for fish oil in salmonid aquaculture, but there are concerns about how the new diets affect the intestinal epithelium. The epithelial functions presently investigated indicate a slight increase in permeability, supporting earlier histological reports of epithelial disruptions but not to the same extent. Nutrient uptake and barrier function during the parr-smolt transformation was significantly improved by a vegetable lipid-containing diet, indicating that this inclusion may be beneficial in the freshwater (FW) stage. The fatty acid profile of the natural diet for salmonids in FW is more similar to a blend of vegetable oils than to the profile of marine feed ingredients, routinely used in salmonid aquaculture. This may be the rationale for the positive effects. Salmon fed sunflower oil, however, showed long term elevation of plasma cortisol levels indicating a chronic stress. As chronic stress is known to depress immune function, specific vegetable lipids potentially stressful to the fish may also affect their health and welfare. Thus, while vegetable lipids at certain life stages are feasible substitutes for fish oil, possible long term stress effects by vegetable oils should be considered. In conclusion, the salmonid intestinal epithelium is a sensitive and dynamic tissue which is affected by external factors, such as pathogen bacteria, environment and diet, but which also can be endogenously regulated to compensate for this disturbance

Effects of elevated carbon dioxide on male and female behavioural lateralization in a temperate goby

Behavioural abnormality in fishes has been proposed as a significant consequence of the increasing levels of carbon dioxide occurring in the oceans. Negative effects of elevated CO2 have been reported for behaviours such as predator-prey interactions, foraging, hearing and behavioural lateralization. Importantly, the effects vary greatly both within and between species, and some recent studies have shown minimal effects of CO2 on behaviour. Whether the effect of CO2 also varies between males and females is, however, virtually unexplored. According to resource allocation theory; females are expected to be more sensitive to elevated CO2, meaning that non-sex-specific studies may overlook ecologically important differences between the sexes. In this study, we investigated the possible differences between males and females in their response to elevated CO2 by performing behavioural lateralization tests in adult temperate two-spotted gobies, Gobiusculus flavescens. We found that the strength of the side bias (absolute lateralization) was unaffected by the CO2 treatment, and there was no difference between males and females. The control fish were slightly right-biased in their behavioural asymmetry (mean relative lateralization of 14). Exposure to high CO2 affected this pattern, such that treated fish were slightly left-biased (mean relative lateralization of -10), regardless of their sex. The same results were obtained yet again when the study was repeated during a second year. We discuss our results in light of the great variation in lateralization that has been reported to depend on variables such as species, ecological settings and environmental factors

Sundin and Jutfelt 2018 CO2 lateralisation

Raw data to reproduce the analyses presented in Sundin and Jutfelt 2018