Munday, P.L., Schunter, C.,
Allan, B.J.M., Nicol, S.,
Parsons, D.M., Pether, S.M.,
Pope, S., Ravasi, T.,
Setiawan, A.N., Smith, N.
and Domingos, J.A.
2019
Testing the adaptive
potential of
yellowtail kingfish
to ocean warming
and acidification.
Frontiers in Ecology
and Evolution
7: 253, doi: 10.3389/fevo.2019.00253.
NOTE:
This fish species is important
to the recreational and
commercial fishery industry.
SUMMARY:
Yellowtail kingfish juveniles
are unaffected by so-called
ocean acidification,
but positively respond
to ocean warming
via heritable genetic
traits that "will likely
aid them in adapting
to a warming ocean."
Munday et al. report that
"elevated temperature,
but not elevated CO2,
had an experiment-wide effect
on morphological traits."
Growth and development
of the larval and
juvenile kingfish was
"substantially faster
at 25°C compared
to 21°C."
Under elevated
temperatures
the fish were
"approximately
five times heavier
and 40% longer"
at the end of the
21 day experiment.
DETAILS:
Munday et al. (2019)
reared kingfish juveniles
from hatching to 21 days
post hatching under
current-day (21°C)
or future-predicted (25°C)
average summer
temperature at c
urrent (500 µatm CO2)
or future (1,000 µatm CO2)
seawater pCO2 levels,
performing the genetic
analyses on fish sampled
at 1, 11 and 21 days
post hatching.
Munday et al.
also report that
"all traits we measured
exhibited significant
additive genetic variance
(i.e., they were heritable),
which could enable
them to adapt under
warmer conditions."