Journal
JOURNAL OF ANIMAL ECOLOGY
Volume 90, Issue 10, Pages 2289-2301Publisher
WILEY
DOI: 10.1111/1365-2656.13535
Keywords
bioenergetics; fish shrinking; food restriction; foraging behaviour; mitochondria; red muscle; sardine
Funding
- MONALISA Project by the European Union
- French Ministry of Agriculture through the European Maritime and Fisheries Fund (EMFF/FEAMP)
- France Filiere Peche
- French Ministere de l'Enseignement Superieur, de la Recherche et de l'Innovation [7097-2016093008412692]
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Global warming is causing declines in body size and condition of sardine populations in the Gulf of Lions. Feeding on smaller prey leads to poor growth, even under abundant food, and low body condition directly affects mitochondrial activity in muscle.
Global warming is causing profound modifications of aquatic ecosystems and one major outcome appears to be a decline in adult size of many fish species. Over the last decade, sardine populations in the Gulf of Lions (NW Mediterranean Sea) have shown severe declines in body size and condition as well as disappearance of the oldest individuals, which could not be related to overfishing, predation pressure or epizootic diseases. In this study, we investigated whether this situation reflects a bottom-up phenomenon caused by reduced size and availability of prey that could lead to energetic constraints. We fed captive sardines with food items of two different sizes eliciting a change in feeding mode (filter-feeding on small items and directly capturing larger ones) at two different rations for several months, and then assessed their muscle bioenergetics to test for changes in cellular function. Feeding on smaller items was associated with a decline in body condition, even at high ration, and almost completely inhibited growth by comparison to sardines fed large items at high ration. Sardines fed on small items presented specific mitochondrial adjustments for energy sparing, indicating a major bioenergetic challenge. Moreover, mitochondria from sardines in poor condition had low basal oxidative activity but high efficiency of ATP production. Notably, when body condition was below a threshold value of 1.07, close to the mean observed in the wild, it was directly correlated with basal mitochondrial activity in muscle. The results show a link between whole-animal condition and cellular bioenergetics in the sardine, and reveal physiological consequences of a shift in feeding mode. They demonstrate that filter-feeding on small prey leads to poor growth, even under abundant food and an increase in the efficiency of ATP production. These findings may partially explain the declines in sardine size and condition observed in the wild.
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