Sublethal salinity stress contributes to habitat limitation in an endangered estuarine fish

As global change alters multiple environmental conditions, predicting species’ responses can be challenging without understanding how each environmental factor influences organismal performance. Approaches quantifying mechanistic relationships can greatly complement correlative field data, strengthe...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Evolutionary applications 2016-09, Vol.9 (8), p.963-981
Main Authors: Komoroske, Lisa M., Jeffries, Ken M., Connon, Richard E., Dexter, Jason, Hasenbein, Matthias, Verhille, Christine, Fangue, Nann A.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
anadromous fish
climate change
delta smelt
Endangered species
Environmental conditions
Environmental factors
environmental stress
Hypomesus transpacificus
Molecular modelling
Original
Osmoregulation
Phenotypic plasticity
Salinity
Salinity effects
transcriptome
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Summary:As global change alters multiple environmental conditions, predicting species’ responses can be challenging without understanding how each environmental factor influences organismal performance. Approaches quantifying mechanistic relationships can greatly complement correlative field data, strengthening our abilities to forecast global change impacts. Substantial salinity increases are projected in the San Francisco Estuary, California, due to anthropogenic water diversion and climatic changes, where the critically endangered delta smelt (Hypomesus transpacificus) largely occurs in a low‐salinity zone (LSZ), despite their ability to tolerate a much broader salinity range. In this study, we combined molecular and organismal measures to quantify the physiological mechanisms and sublethal responses involved in coping with salinity changes. Delta smelt utilize a suite of conserved molecular mechanisms to rapidly adjust their osmoregulatory physiology in response to salinity changes in estuarine environments. However, these responses can be energetically expensive, and delta smelt body condition was reduced at high salinities. Thus, acclimating to salinities outside the LSZ could impose energetic costs that constrain delta smelt's ability to exploit these habitats. By integrating data across biological levels, we provide key insight into the mechanistic relationships contributing to phenotypic plasticity and distribution limitations and advance the understanding of the molecular osmoregulatory responses in nonmodel estuarine fishes.
ISSN:1752-4571
1752-4571
DOI:10.1111/eva.12385