Meeting Abstract
Many organisms exhibit compensatory growth (CG), an accelerated growth rate during recovery from a total or partial food deprivation. However, many aspects of compensatory growth, such as its effects on future growth and aerobic performance, remain poorly understood. To explore these effects of early-life compensatory growth, we studied a model organism, the threespine stickleback (Gasterosteus aculeatus) across the first four months of life to assess longer-term physiological effects on growth and swimming performance during the juvenile and sub-adult stages. We hypothesized that fish exposed to a diet deficit during the second month of life, and then returned to an ad-lib diet, would take longer to achieve a normal growth trajectory than would fish exposed to diet deprivation in the third and fourth months of life. Our second prediction was that stickleback exposed to a diet deficit earlier in life would manifest lower swimming stamina levels during the sub-adult stage. Recent stickleback research suggests that the effect of CG on aerobic performance is time dependent and is much higher in stickleback just prior to the breeding season. Contrary to our above-mentioned hypotheses, our results show that younger fish that undergo a CG event are better able to regain optimal growth trajectories. The sticklebacks across the three dietary treatments also showed similar swimming stamina levels upon reaching the sub-adult stage.
