Meeting Abstract
Examining the role of temperature in shaping life-history strategies can aid our understanding of basic life-history theory, help us develop optimal rearing conditions for cultivated organisms, and improve our ability to predict how organisms will respond to changes in environmental temperatures. In this study we examined the relative investment in somatic, gonadal, and liver growth as well as a measure of immune function in a marine species of fish (cabezon, Scorpaenichthys marmoratus) reared under different ambient temperature regimes (mean temps. 14.8oC and 12.7oC). Previous work documented significant reductions in growth and immune function for fish in the colder rearing environment compared to fish reared in the warmer environment. We predicted that fish reared in colder water would exhibit more pronounced trade-offs among growth, development, and immune parameters than fish in warmer water, and that females would have more pronounced trade-offs than males due to increased energy requirements for ovary development. We found immune function and liver investment were positively related in the cold water fish, but not related in the warm water fish. Immune function positively covaried with gonadal investment, but was not associated with somatic investment. Gonadal investment was negatively related to somatic investment, but this was driven by females, as there was no relationship between gonad development and somatic growth in males. We also found a significant difference between the sexes in the relationship between gonadal investment and liver investment, in which females again exhibited a significant negative association, and males exhibited a positive association.
