Egg-size evolution in aquatic environments: does oxygen availability constrain size?
Selection against large eggs has been proposed for aquatic environments, putatively because large eggs should have more difficulty obtaining the required oxygen. Here, we use brown trout (Salmo trutta) eggs to provide an experimental test of this hypothesis. At high levels of dissolved oxygen (14 mg...
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ftpubmed:oai:pubmedcentral.nih.gov:1691158 2023-05-15T15:31:23+02:00 Egg-size evolution in aquatic environments: does oxygen availability constrain size? Einum, Sigurd Hendry, Andrew P Fleming, Ian A 2002-11-22 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1691158 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12495499 https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2002.2150 en eng http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1691158 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12495499 http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2002.2150 Research Article Text 2002 ftpubmed https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2002.2150 2013-08-31T12:34:36Z Selection against large eggs has been proposed for aquatic environments, putatively because large eggs should have more difficulty obtaining the required oxygen. Here, we use brown trout (Salmo trutta) eggs to provide an experimental test of this hypothesis. At high levels of dissolved oxygen (14 mg l(-1)), egg survival was high and independent of egg size. At low oxygen levels (2.3 mg l(-1)), survival decreased overall, and was higher for large-egged than small-egged siblings. Thus, contrary to conventional expectation, low oxygen levels selected for large rather than small eggs. A second experiment using Atlantic salmon (S. salar) eggs indicated that oxygen consumption increases relatively slowly with increasing egg mass (allometric constant = 0.44). The failure of the conventional 'bigger is worse during incubation' hypothesis may thus be due to the erroneous assumption that oxygen consumption increases at a greater rate with increasing egg mass than does the egg surface area that is available for oxygen diffusion. We also demonstrate, using data from Atlantic salmon, that nest-specific oxygen consumption decreases with increasing egg size, but that this effect is more pronounced for large than for small females. This may help to explain the positive correlation between adult body size and egg size observed in fishes that cluster their eggs. Text Atlantic salmon PubMed Central (PMC) Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. Series B: Biological Sciences 269 1507 2325 2330 |
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Research Article Einum, Sigurd Hendry, Andrew P Fleming, Ian A Egg-size evolution in aquatic environments: does oxygen availability constrain size? |
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Research Article |
description |
Selection against large eggs has been proposed for aquatic environments, putatively because large eggs should have more difficulty obtaining the required oxygen. Here, we use brown trout (Salmo trutta) eggs to provide an experimental test of this hypothesis. At high levels of dissolved oxygen (14 mg l(-1)), egg survival was high and independent of egg size. At low oxygen levels (2.3 mg l(-1)), survival decreased overall, and was higher for large-egged than small-egged siblings. Thus, contrary to conventional expectation, low oxygen levels selected for large rather than small eggs. A second experiment using Atlantic salmon (S. salar) eggs indicated that oxygen consumption increases relatively slowly with increasing egg mass (allometric constant = 0.44). The failure of the conventional 'bigger is worse during incubation' hypothesis may thus be due to the erroneous assumption that oxygen consumption increases at a greater rate with increasing egg mass than does the egg surface area that is available for oxygen diffusion. We also demonstrate, using data from Atlantic salmon, that nest-specific oxygen consumption decreases with increasing egg size, but that this effect is more pronounced for large than for small females. This may help to explain the positive correlation between adult body size and egg size observed in fishes that cluster their eggs. |
format |
Text |
author |
Einum, Sigurd Hendry, Andrew P Fleming, Ian A |
author_facet |
Einum, Sigurd Hendry, Andrew P Fleming, Ian A |
author_sort |
Einum, Sigurd |
title |
Egg-size evolution in aquatic environments: does oxygen availability constrain size? |
title_short |
Egg-size evolution in aquatic environments: does oxygen availability constrain size? |
title_full |
Egg-size evolution in aquatic environments: does oxygen availability constrain size? |
title_fullStr |
Egg-size evolution in aquatic environments: does oxygen availability constrain size? |
title_full_unstemmed |
Egg-size evolution in aquatic environments: does oxygen availability constrain size? |
title_sort |
egg-size evolution in aquatic environments: does oxygen availability constrain size? |
publishDate |
2002 |
url |
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1691158 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12495499 https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2002.2150 |
genre |
Atlantic salmon |
genre_facet |
Atlantic salmon |
op_relation |
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1691158 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12495499 http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2002.2150 |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2002.2150 |
container_title |
Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. Series B: Biological Sciences |
container_volume |
269 |
container_issue |
1507 |
container_start_page |
2325 |
op_container_end_page |
2330 |
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1766361882930708480 |