Growth-mediated seasonal energy allocation patterns of young-of-year largemouth bass (Micropterus salmoides)
2012
Jacobs, Gregory R. | Breck, James E. | Höök, Tomas O.
In temperate environments, seasonal selective sources of mortality (e.g., starvation and predation) may drive season-specific energy allocation patterns of young-of-year fish. However, when quantifying such phenomena, the effect of ration is rarely considered. We conducted two experiments to investigate the effect of ration on seasonal energy allocation patterns of age-0 largemouth bass (Micropterus salmoides) during summer and fall. In a laboratory experiment designed to evaluate short-term effects of ration on energy allocation, recent ration history strongly affected body dimensions and length-adjusted energy content. In outdoor raceways, young largemouth bass grew at different rates under different ration levels. In response, length-adjusted energy content, a size-independent index of condition, differed among raceway ration treatments during late summer. However, during fall, high- and low-growth treatment fish expressed similar length-adjusted energy content. Thus, while low-growth fish appeared to allocate a disproportionately low amount of energy to growth of energy-rich storage tissue during late summer, as winter approached, low-growth fish switched and instead allocated a disproportionately high amount of energy to storage tissue. We conclude that energy availability (via ration level) affects short-term energy allocation patterns and may interactively influence seasonal shifts in energy allocation patterns.
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