Temperature effect on the maximum swimming speed of jack mackerel Trachurus japonicus through muscle contraction monitoring

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to know the effect of temperature on fish muscle contraction of jack mackerel (Trachurus japonicus), which muscle contraction will determine the tail beat frequency and maximum swimming speed. The maximum swimming speed of was evaluated according to the measurement of the muscle contraction time with electric stimuli of 2-7 V, 50 ms. Fish were separated into four groups for temperature acclimation at 10, 15, 18 and 22 ºC to reflect typical changes in seasonal water temperature in Japan. Results showed that the swimming speed of the fish was positively related to the tail-beat frequency at all temperatures. The muscle contraction time was also affected by the acclimated temperature, which longer at the lower temperature than higher ones. Mean contraction time (Tm) was 45.1 ms at 10 ºC, 32.7 ms at 15 ºC, 32.9 ms at 18 ºC, and 31.9 ms at 22 ºC, respectively. The mean of maximum tailbeat frequency (Fmax) obtained from Fmax = ½ Tm was 11.4 Hz at 10 ºC, 15.8 Hz at 15 ºC, 16,4 Hz at 18 ºC, and 16.6 Hz at 22 ºC. These were used to estimate the maximum swimming speed (Umax) at each temperature, resulting in 9.45 FL s -1 at 10 ºC, 13.5 FL s -1 at 15 ºC, 14.0 FL s -1 18 ºC, and 14.2 FL s -1 at 22 ºC. The seasonal temperature effects on the swimming performance of T. japonicus, which lower water temperature in the winter made low swimming performance.

Behavior and swimming performance of local fish in the ecosystem waters of rivers, oxbow and peat swamps

“…The maximum sustained speed is the swimming speed of the fish that exceeds the sustained speed, where the red and white muscles work when swimming. At this speed, swimming endurance decreases drastically because the fish are exhausted (Nofrizal et al 2009;Nofrizal and Arimoto 2011;Nofrizal and Ahmad 2015;Nofrizal et al 2020a). The next is prolonged speed, a faster swimming speed where the fish swim for more than 15 seconds and less than 200 minutes due to fatigue.…”

“…The behavior and swimming performance of fish are also important information in managing aquatic resources for conservation purposes. Most studies on the swimming performance of fish focus on marine fish species (Breen et al 2004;Clark et al 2005;Nofrizal et al 2020a). Meanwhile, the number of studies on freshwater fish is quite limited (Zeng et al 2009;Oufiero et al 2011;Kern et al 2018).…”