Meeting Abstract
The ability of an individual to perform a certain task (e.g., prey capture) driven by a temperature-dependent process is constrained by the reduction in biological rates as a consequence of decrease in environmental temperature. Environmental temperature has a profound influence on the fish’s ability to successfully accomplish relevant tasks such as swimming, feeding, mating, and escaping from predators. The expression of temperature-induced changes in fish-muscle physiology varies according to different temporal scales (e.g., seasonal or developmental) and levels of organization. Seasonal temperature change may induce modifications of muscle properties, allowing fish to acclimate to the new ambient temperature and drive plastic responses that mitigate temperature effects on whole-organismal performance. In an attempt to advance our understanding of how acclimation contributes to the mitigation of temperature-induced effects on performance, this study was designed to compare the prey-capture performance of bluegill sunfish, Lepomis microchirus, adapted to two contrasting ecosystems: western Massachusetts and central Florida. Overlapping size class of fish in both allopatric populations were filmed in a common experimental room at Florida Institute of Technology using high-speed video while feeding on pieces of earthworm, Lumbricus, at 20C, 24C, 28C, and 30C to compare prey-capture kinematics among temperatures and between populations. In the initial phase of prey-capture, kinematics is independent of temperature, whereas, the kinematics of the compressive phase of the feeding event is more variable and appeared to be temperature dependent. The disparate effects of temperature on different components of feeding are extremely interesting and warrant further investigations.
