IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/plo/pone00/0235817.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Are long-term growth responses to elevated pCO2 sex-specific in fish?

Author

Listed:
  • Christopher S Murray
  • Hannes Baumann

Abstract

Whether marine fish will grow differently in future high pCO2 environments remains surprisingly uncertain. Long-term and whole-life cycle effects are particularly unknown, because such experiments are logistically challenging, space demanding, exclude long-lived species, and require controlled, restricted feeding regimes—otherwise increased consumption could mask potential growth effects. Here, we report on repeated, long-term, food-controlled experiments to rear large populations (>4,000 individuals total) of the experimental model and ecologically important forage fish Menidia menidia (Atlantic silverside) under contrasting temperature (17°, 24°, and 28°C) and pCO2 conditions (450 vs. ~2,200 μatm) from fertilization to ~ a third of this annual species’ life span. Quantile analyses of trait distributions showed mostly negative effects of high pCO2 on long-term growth. At 17°C and 28°C, but not at 24°C, high pCO2 fish were significantly shorter [17°C: -5 to -9%; 28°C: -3%] and weighed less [17°C: -6 to -18%; 28°C: -8%] compared to ambient pCO2 fish. Reductions in fish weight were smaller than in length, which is why high pCO2 fish at 17°C consistently exhibited a higher Fulton’s k (weight/length ratio). Notably, it took more than 100 days of rearing for statistically significant length differences to emerge between treatment populations, showing that cumulative, long-term CO2 effects could exist elsewhere but are easily missed by short experiments. Long-term rearing had another benefit: it allowed sexing the surviving fish, thereby enabling rare sex-specific analyses of trait distributions under contrasting CO2 environments. We found that female silversides grew faster than males, but there was no interaction between CO2 and sex, indicating that males and females were similarly affected by high pCO2. Because Atlantic silversides are known to exhibit temperature-dependent sex determination, we also analyzed sex ratios, revealing no evidence for CO2-dependent sex determination in this species.

Suggested Citation

  • Christopher S Murray & Hannes Baumann, 2020. "Are long-term growth responses to elevated pCO2 sex-specific in fish?," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 15(7), pages 1-21, July.
  • Handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0235817
    DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0235817
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0235817
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0235817&type=printable
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1371/journal.pone.0235817?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Hannes Baumann & Stephanie C. Talmage & Christopher J. Gobler, 2012. "Reduced early life growth and survival in a fish in direct response to increased carbon dioxide," Nature Climate Change, Nature, vol. 2(1), pages 38-41, January.
    2. Rand R. Wilcox & David M. Erceg-Hurn, 2012. "Comparing two dependent groups via quantiles," Journal of Applied Statistics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 39(12), pages 2655-2664, August.
    3. Gabrielle M. Miller & Sue-Ann Watson & Jennifer M. Donelson & Mark I. McCormick & Philip L. Munday, 2012. "Parental environment mediates impacts of increased carbon dioxide on a coral reef fish," Nature Climate Change, Nature, vol. 2(12), pages 858-861, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Laplanche, Christophe & Leunda, Pedro M. & Boithias, Laurie & Ardaíz, José & Juanes, Francis, 2019. "Advantages and insights from a hierarchical Bayesian growth and dynamics model based on salmonid electrofishing removal data," Ecological Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 392(C), pages 8-21.
    2. Laura Baldassarre & Hua Ying & Adam M. Reitzel & Sören Franzenburg & Sebastian Fraune, 2022. "Microbiota mediated plasticity promotes thermal adaptation in the sea anemone Nematostella vectensis," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 13(1), pages 1-13, December.
    3. Marta S. Pimentel & Filipa Faleiro & Tiago Marques & Regina Bispo & Gisela Dionísio & Ana M. Faria & Jorge Machado & Myron A. Peck & Hans Pörtner & Pedro Pousão-Ferreira & Emanuel J. Gonçalves & Rui R, 2016. "Foraging behaviour, swimming performance and malformations of early stages of commercially important fishes under ocean acidification and warming," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 137(3), pages 495-509, August.
    4. Morris, David J. & Speirs, Douglas C. & Cameron, Angus I. & Heath, Michael R., 2014. "Global sensitivity analysis of an end-to-end marine ecosystem model of the North Sea: Factors affecting the biomass of fish and benthos," Ecological Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 273(C), pages 251-263.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0235817. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: plosone (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.