TY - JOUR
T1 - Predation of freshwater fish in environments with elevated carbon dioxide
AU - Midway, Stephen R.
AU - Hasler, Caleb T.
AU - Wagner, Tyler
AU - Suski, Cory D.
N1 - Funding Information:
This work was supported by the United States Geological Survey, through funds provided by the United States Environmental Protection Agency’s Great Lakes Restoration Initiative. We thank Cody Sullivan for technical support and Jen Jeffrey for helpful comments. Any use of trade, firm, or product names is for descriptive purposes only and does not imply endorsement by the US Government.
PY - 2017
Y1 - 2017
N2 - Carbon dioxide (CO2) in fresh-water environments is poorly understood, yet in marine environments CO2 can affect fish behaviour, including predator-prey relationships. To examine changes in predator success in elevated CO2, we experimented with predatory Micropterus salmoides and Pimephales promelas prey. We used a two-factor fully crossed experimental design; one factor was 4-day (acclimation) CO2 concentration and the second factor CO2 concentration during 20-min predation experiments. Both factors had three treatment levels, including ambient partial pressure of CO2 (pCO2; 0-1000 atm), low pCO2 (4000-5000 atm) and high pCO2 (8000-10000 atm). Micropterus salmoides was exposed to both factors, whereas P. promelas was not exposed to the acclimation factor. In total, 83 of the 96P. promelas were consumed (n≤96 trials) and we saw no discernible effect of CO2 on predator success or time to predation. Failed strikes and time between failed strikes were too infrequent to model. Compared with marine systems, our findings are unique in that we not only saw no changes in prey capture success with increasing CO2, but we also used CO2 treatments that were substantially higher than those in past experiments. Our work demonstrated a pronounced resiliency of freshwater predators to elevated CO2 exposure, and a starting point for future work in this area.
AB - Carbon dioxide (CO2) in fresh-water environments is poorly understood, yet in marine environments CO2 can affect fish behaviour, including predator-prey relationships. To examine changes in predator success in elevated CO2, we experimented with predatory Micropterus salmoides and Pimephales promelas prey. We used a two-factor fully crossed experimental design; one factor was 4-day (acclimation) CO2 concentration and the second factor CO2 concentration during 20-min predation experiments. Both factors had three treatment levels, including ambient partial pressure of CO2 (pCO2; 0-1000 atm), low pCO2 (4000-5000 atm) and high pCO2 (8000-10000 atm). Micropterus salmoides was exposed to both factors, whereas P. promelas was not exposed to the acclimation factor. In total, 83 of the 96P. promelas were consumed (n≤96 trials) and we saw no discernible effect of CO2 on predator success or time to predation. Failed strikes and time between failed strikes were too infrequent to model. Compared with marine systems, our findings are unique in that we not only saw no changes in prey capture success with increasing CO2, but we also used CO2 treatments that were substantially higher than those in past experiments. Our work demonstrated a pronounced resiliency of freshwater predators to elevated CO2 exposure, and a starting point for future work in this area.
KW - Micropterus salmoides
KW - Pimephales promelas.
KW - climate change
KW - predator
KW - prey dynamics
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U2 - 10.1071/MF16156
DO - 10.1071/MF16156
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85028608318
SN - 1323-1650
VL - 68
SP - 1585
EP - 1592
JO - Marine and Freshwater Research
JF - Marine and Freshwater Research
IS - 9
ER -