Temperature tolerance and energetics: a dynamic energy budget-based comparison of North Atlantic marine species

Abstract

Temperature tolerance and sensitivity were examined for some North Atlantic marine species and linked to their energetics in terms of species-specific parameters described by dynamic energy budget (DEB) theory. There was a general lack of basic information on temperature tolerance and sensitivity for many species. Available data indicated that the ranges in tolerable temperatures were positively related to optimal growth temperatures. However, no clear relationships with temperature sensitivity were established and no clear differences between pelagic and demersal species were observed. The analysis was complicated by the fact that for pelagic species, experimental data were completely absent and even for well-studied species, information was incomplete and sometimes contradictory. Nevertheless, differences in life-history strategies were clearly reflected in parameter differences between related species. Two approaches were used in the estimation of DEB parameters: one based on the assumption that reserve hardly contributes to physical volume; the other does not make this assumption, but relies on body-size scaling relationships, using parameter values of a generalized animal as pseudo-data. Temperature tolerance and sensitivity seemed to be linked with the energetics of a species. In terms of growth, relatively high temperature optima, sensitivity and/or tolerance were related to lower relative assimilation rates as well as lower maintenance costs. Making the step from limited observations to underlying mechanisms is complicated and extrapolations should be carefully interpreted. Special attention should be devoted to the estimation of parameters using body-size scaling relationships predicted by the DEB theory.

Reconsidering the impossible — linking environmental drivers to growth, mortality, and recruitment of fish

“…Covariation between growth and year-class strength, as Campana (1996) and Ottersen and Loeng (2000) have found, may indicate that an increase in growth is more substantial than the corresponding increase in mortality, assuming a positive growth-mortality relationship, which would result in greater survivorship. However, the weak pattern of serial correlation in survivorship may be at odds with the potential role of temperature regulation of the growth-mortality relationship because the autocorrelation in ocean temperature is generally strong (e.g., Varotsos et al 2013), typically driven by large-scale atmospheric forcing, and may have significant associations with various drivers of marine productivity (Alexander et al 2014;Goberville et al 2014). In this light, an alternative perspective could be that temperature acts to modulate the dynamics of growth but that the impact on mortality would be related to the potential for greater exposure to predators, resulting from the temperature-dependent change in activity of young fish while foraging, and that variations around the fundamental growthmortality relationship would be the result of changes in the dynamics and abundance or occurrence of higher trophic levels (e.g., predators).…”

“…A possible explanation of the positive growth-mortality relationship could involve the common effect of temperature on ecosystem metabolism that would cause poikilotherms to alter their development, activity, and production patterns along a common trend. Temperature has been linked to ecophysiological processes that govern pattern of variation in recruitment or survivorship in a number of species and environments (Freitas et al 2010;Peck et al 2013;Planque and Fredou 1999;Takasuka et al 2007b). The slope of the underlying growth-mortality relationship could determine the relative sensitivity of survivorship to growth versus mortality and could be dependent on the life history characteristics of each species.…”

Mussels as a Model System for Integrative Ecomechanics

“…The most recent applications of DEB theory have been in both terrestrial (e.g., Kearney 2012) and aquatic habitats (e.g., Freitas et al 2010;Jusup et al 2011;Sarà et al 2011Sarà et al , 2012Sarà et al , 2013aSarà et al ,b, 2014bNisbet et al 2012;Teal et al 2012 the modeling effort by using a high-resolution series of local temperatures and food density (e.g., Montalto et al 2014b). The DEB approach is currently used in a broad range of species and environmental contexts to answer basic ecological questions (e.g., Jager & Klok 2010).…”

Dynamic energy budget theory restores coherence in biology

“…DEB rate parameters depend on temperature. Freitas et al (2010) compare the temperature tolerance (this is the set of temperatures for which the Arrhenius relationship applies) and temperature sensitivity for a variety of marine species. Their results suggest that the width of the temperature tolerance range increases with the optimal growth temperature.…”