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Lookup NU author(s): Dr Fabrice StephensonORCiD
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0).
© 2022, The Author(s).As global oceans continue to warm and deoxygenate, it is expected that marine ectotherms will reduce in body size resulting from the interactive effects of temperature and dissolved oxygen availability. A temperature-size response describes how wild populations of ectothermic species grow faster and reach a smaller size within warmer temperatures. While temperature-size responses are well observed in marine ectotherms, the mechanisms underpinning such a reduction in body size remain debated. Here, we analyse the relative influence of temperature, dissolved oxygen concentration, and geographic location (which encompasses multiple latent variables), on the maximum body length of four fish, one crustacean, and one squid species, which inhabit shallow to deep sea (1000 m) New Zealand waters across a temperature gradient of 1.5 to 18 °C. We found that all study species displayed a temperature-size response, with the strongest response exhibited by the largest species, hoki (Macruronus novaezelandiae). We also found that temperature was more important than dissolved oxygen concentration in determining maximum body length, as dissolved oxygen levels were at or near saturation in the study area. Our results suggest that larger-bodied species may experience the strongest temperature-size responses, and support expectations from the gill-oxygen limitation theory (GOLT) and the oxygen and capacity limited thermal tolerance (OCLTT) concept that increases in oxygen demand may be size- and temperature-dependent, thus driving a reduction in maximum body length of marine ectotherms with warming.
Author(s): Lavin CP, Gordo-Vilaseca C, Stephenson F, Shi Z, Costello MJ
Publication type: Article
Publication status: Published
Journal: Environmental Biology of Fishes
Year: 2022
Volume: 105
Issue: 10
Pages: 1431-1446
Print publication date: 01/10/2022
Online publication date: 09/04/2022
Acceptance date: 30/03/2022
Date deposited: 23/11/2023
ISSN (print): 0378-1909
ISSN (electronic): 1573-5133
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media B.V.
URL: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10641-022-01251-7
DOI: 10.1007/s10641-022-01251-7
Data Access Statement: Species’ length data are available upon request to the Ministry for Primary Industries, New Zealand. Code availability The code used for analysis in the current study is available on GitHub at https://github.com/charles-patrick-lavin/New-Zealand-maximum-length-EBFI-2022.git.
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