European sea bass show behavioural resilience to near-future ocean acidification

• Published in: Royal Society Open Science
• Main Authors: Duteil, M., Pope, E. C., Pérez-Escudero, Alfonso, García de Polavieja, Gonzalo, Fürtbauer, I., Brown, M. R., King, A. J.
• Other Authors: Natural Environment Research Council (UK), Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (UK), Department of Energy and Climate Change (UK), Swansea University, German Research Foundation
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: unknown
• Published: Royal Society (Great Britain) 2016
• Subjects: Dicentrarchus labrax; Environmental change; Fisheries; Motion tracking; Social behaviour; Ocean acidification
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10261/199945; https://doi.org/10.1098/rsos.160656; https://doi.org/10.13039/501100000277; https://doi.org/10.13039/100008428; https://doi.org/10.13039/501100001317; https://doi.org/10.13039/501100001659; https://doi.org/10.13039/501100000270

© 2016 The Authors. Ocean acidification (OA)—caused by rising concentrations of carbon dioxide (CO2)—is thought to be a major threat to marine ecosystems and has been shown to induce behavioural alterations in fish. Here we show behavioural resilience to near-future OA in a commercially important and migratory marine finfish, the Sea bass (Dicentrarchus labrax). Sea bass were raised from eggs at 19°C in ambient or near-future OA (1000 µatm pCO2) conditions and n = 270 fish were observed 59–68 days post-hatch using automated tracking from video. Fish reared under ambient conditions, OA conditions, and fish reared in ambient conditions but tested in OA water showed statistically similar movement patterns, and reacted to their environment and interacted with each other in comparable ways. Thus our findings indicate behavioural resilience to near-future OA in juvenile sea bass. Moreover, simulated agent-based models indicate that our analysis methods are sensitive to subtle changes in fish behaviour. It is now important to determine whether the absences of any differences persist under more ecologically relevant circumstances and in contexts which have a more direct bearing on individual fitness Experimental work was funded through UKOARP grant NE/H01750X/1, co-funded by the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC), the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), and the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) and a NERC Fellowship awarded to A.J.K. (NE/H016600/3). M.D. was supported by a Swansea University PhD scholarship, A.J.K. by a NERC Fellowship (NE/H016600/3), I.F. by a German Research Foundation Fellowship (DFG; FU-985/1–1) and M.R.B. by an EPSRC grant (EP\M00061\1).