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Morphological differences between habitats are associated with physiological and behavioural trade-offs in stickleback (Gasterosteus aculeatus)

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2016_Seebacher_et_al._3ss_morphology_physiology_trade_offs_RSOS.pdf (546.5Kb)
Date
29/06/2016
Author
Seebacher, Frank
Webster, Michael Munro
James, Rob S.
Tallis, Jason
Ward, Ashley J. W.
Keywords
Population
Locomotor performance
Salinity
Social behavior
Muscle
QH301 Biology
DAS
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Abstract
Local specialization can be advantageous for individuals and may increase the resilience of the species to environmental change. However, there may be trade-offs between morphological responses and physiological performance and behaviour. Our aim was to test whether habitat-specific morphology of stickleback (Gasterosteus aculeatus) interacts with physiological performance and behaviour at different salinities. We rejected the hypothesis that deeper body shape of fish from habitats with high predation pressure led to decreases in locomotor performance. However, there was a trade-off between deeper body shape and muscle quality. Muscle of deeper-bodied fish produced less force than that of shallow-bodied saltmarsh fish. Nonetheless, saltmarsh fish had lower swimming performance, presumably because of lower muscle mass overall coupled with smaller caudal peduncles and larger heads. Saltmarsh fish performed better in saline water (20 ppt) relative to freshwater and relative to fish from freshwater habitats. However, exposure to salinity affected shoaling behaviour of fish from all habitats and shoals moved faster and closer together compared with freshwater. We show that habitat modification can alter phenotypes of native species, but local morphological specialization is associated with trade-offs that may reduce its benefits.
Citation
Seebacher , F , Webster , M M , James , R S , Tallis , J & Ward , A J W 2016 , ' Morphological differences between habitats are associated with physiological and behavioural trade-offs in stickleback ( Gasterosteus aculeatus ) ' , Royal Society Open Science , vol. 3 , 1603316 . https://doi.org/10.1098/rsos.160316
Publication
Royal Society Open Science
Status
Peer reviewed
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1098/rsos.160316
ISSN
2054-5703
Type
Journal article
Rights
© 2016 The Authors. Published by the Royal Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/, which permits unrestricted use, provided the original author and source are credited.
Description
F.S. and A.J.W.W. were supported by the Australian Research Council, M.M.W. was supported by The University of St Andrews and R.S.J. and J.T. were supported by Coventry University
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  • University of St Andrews Research
URI
http://hdl.handle.net/10023/9112

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