The effects of pelagic trawling on the health and welfare of Atlantic herring (Clupea harengus L.) were investigated on a refrigerated seawater vessel operating in the North Sea. A total of 495 Atlantic herring (Clupea harengus L.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFClimate change will exacerbate the negative effects associated with the introduction of non-indigenous species in marine ecosystems. Predicting the spread of invasive species in relation to environmental warming is therefore a fundamental task in ecology and conservation. The Baltic Sea is currently threatened by several local stressors and the highest increase in sea surface temperature of the world's large marine ecosystems.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe round goby (Neogobius melanostomus) is a fish native to the Ponto-Caspian region that is highly invasive through freshwater and brackish habitats in northern Europe and North America. Individual behavioural variation appears to be an important factor in their spread, for example a round goby's personality traits can influence their dispersal tendency, which may also produce variation in the behavioral composition of populations at different points along their invasion fronts. To further analyze the drivers of behavioral variation within invasive round goby populations, we focused on two populations along the Baltic Sea invasion front with closely comparable physical and community characteristics.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe Eastern Baltic cod (Gadus morhua) stock is currently in a very poor state, with low biomass and adverse trends in several life history and demographic parameters. This raises concern over whether and to what level recovery is possible. Here, we look for new insights from a historical perspective, extending the time series of various stock health indicators back to the 1940s, i.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFInfection levels with the parasitic nematode Contracaecum osculatum in Eastern Baltic cod have increased in the last decades. Eastern Baltic cod is transport host for this parasite that has a high affinity for the liver of the fish. The liver is a highly vital organ and damage to the liver tissue can result in reduced functionality of the organ.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFChanges in physiological processes can reveal how individuals respond to environmental stressors. It can be difficult to link physiological responses to changes in vital rates such as growth, reproduction and survival. Here, bioenergetics modelling can aid in understanding non-intuitive outcomes from stressor combinations.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFFor externally fertilising organisms in the aquatic environment, the abiotic fertilisation medium can be a strong selecting force. Among bony fishes, sperm are adapted to function in a narrow salinity range. A notable exception is the family Gobiidae, where several species reproduce across a wide salinity range.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThis study examines the impact of boldness on foraging competition of the highly invasive round goby Neogobius melanostomus Pallas 1815. Individual risk tolerance, or boldness, was measured as the time to resume movement after a simulated predation strike. Fish that resumed movement faster were categorized as "bold," fish that took more time to resume movement were categorized as "shy" and those that fell in between these two categories were determined to have "intermediate" boldness.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFInvasive species exert negative impacts on biodiversity and ecosystems on a global scale, which may be enhanced in the future by climate change. Knowledge of how invasive species respond physiologically and behaviorally to novel and changing environments can improve our understanding of which traits enable the ecological success of these species, and potentially facilitate mitigation efforts. We examined the effects of acclimation to temperatures ranging from 5 to 28°C on aerobic metabolic rates, upper temperature tolerance (critical thermal maximum, CT), as well as temperature preference () and avoidance () of the round goby (), one of the most impactful invasive species in the world.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFEstablishing relationships between parasite infection and physiological condition of the host can be difficult and therefore are often neglected when describing factors causing population declines. Using the parasite-host system between the parasitic nematode and the Eastern Baltic cod , we here shed new light on how parasite load may relate to the physiological condition of a transport host. The Eastern Baltic cod is in distress, with declining nutritional conditions, disappearance of the larger fish, high natural mortality and no signs of recovery of the population.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFDifferences between individuals in behavioral type (i.e. animal personality) are ecologically and evolutionarily important because they can have significant effects on fitness components such as growth and predation risk.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFNon-indigenous species (NIS) can impact marine biodiversity and ecosystem structure and function. Once introduced into a new region, secondary dispersal is limited by the physiology of the organism in relation to the ambient environment and by complex interactions between a suite of ecological factors such as presence of predators, competitors, and parasites. Early prediction of dispersal potential and future 'area of impact' is challenging, but also a great asset in taking appropriate management actions.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFLarvae of the eye fluke, Diplostomum, emerge from snails and infect fish by penetrating skin or gills, then move to the lens where they may impair the vision of the fish. For the fluke to reproduce, a bird must eat the infected fish, and it has been suggested that they therefore actively manipulate the fish's behaviour to increase the risk of predation. We found that round gobies Neogobius melanostomus, a species that was recently introduced to the Kalmar Sound of the Baltic Sea, had an eye fluke prevalence of 90-100%.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFComp Biochem Physiol A Mol Integr Physiol
January 2015
Changes in ambient temperature affect the physiology and metabolism and thus the distribution of fish. In this study we used intermittent flow respirometry to determine the effect of temperature (2, 5, 10, 15 and 20°C) and wet body mass (BM) (~30-460g) on standard metabolic rate (SMR, mgO2h(-1)), maximum metabolic rate (MMR, mgO2h(-1)) and metabolic scope (MS, mgO2h(-1)) of juvenile Atlantic cod. SMR increased with BM irrespectively of temperature, resulting in an average scaling exponent of 0.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFComp Biochem Physiol A Mol Integr Physiol
September 2013
Haemoglobin polymorphism in cod (Gadus morhua L) has been investigated throughout the last 50years. Field studies have shed light on the geographic distribution of the two common alleles (HbI(1) and HbI(2)), and laboratory studies have shown effects of genotype on physiological traits such as growth, reproduction and hypoxia tolerance. The geographic distribution of alleles shows a correlation with temperature, with increasing frequency of HbI(1) in warmer areas.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSome Atlantic cod in the Bornholm Basin undertake vertical foraging migrations into severely hypoxic bottom water. Hypoxic conditions can reduce the postprandial increase in gastrointestinal blood flow (GBF). This could subsequently postpone or reduce the postprandial increase in oxygen consumption (MO(2)), i.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFWith the aim of understanding the molecular underpinnings of the enormous variation in the temperature sensitivity of hemocyanin-O2 affinity encountered in crustaceans, we measured O2 binding to Carcinus maenas hemocyanin at two temperatures, varying pH values and in the absence and presence of lactate ions in order to assess the contributions of oxygenation-linked binding of protons (the Bohr effect) and lactate ions to the overall enthalpies of oxygenation (DeltaH'). The hemocyanin binds maximally 0.35 lactate ions per functional subunit.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe oxygen environment around buried sandeels (Ammodytes tobianus) was monitored by planar optodes. The oxygen penetration depth at the sediment interface was only a few mm. Thus fish, typically buried at 1-4 cm depth, were generally in anoxic sediment.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFWe investigated divalent cation and anaerobic end-product concentrations and the interactive effects of these substances and pH on haemocyanin oxygen-binding (Hc-O(2)) in the New Zealand abalone Haliotis iris. During 24 h of environmental hypoxia (emersion), D-lactate and tauropine accumulated in the foot and shell adductor muscles and in the haemolymph of the aorta, the pedal sinus and adductor muscle lacunae, whereas L-lactate was not detected. Intramuscular and haemolymph D-lactate concentrations were similar, but tauropine accumulated to much higher levels in muscle tissues.
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