Study on the individual variation in compensatory growth rate, metabolic rate and risk-taking behavior in an airbreathing fish, Clarias gariepinus

• Grant number: 12/24496-2
• Support Opportunities: Research Grants - Visiting Researcher Grant - International
• Start date: April 01, 2013
• End date: May 31, 2013
• Field of knowledge: Biological Sciences - Physiology - Compared Physiology
• Principal Investigator: Francisco Tadeu Rantin
• Grantee: Francisco Tadeu Rantin
• Visiting researcher: David John Mckenzie
• Visiting researcher institution: Université Montpellier 2, France
• Host Institution: Centro de Ciências Biológicas e da Saúde (CCBS). Universidade Federal de São Carlos (UFSCAR). São Carlos , SP, Brazil

Abstract

This collaborative project will use a facultative air breathing fish as a model to investigate the hypothesis that there are direct positive relationships among two physiological traits, intrinsic growth capacity and metabolic rate, and a "personality" trait, the tendency to take risks. Experiments will be performed on a population of 35 individually-tagged African catfish, Clarias gariepinus. Intrinsic growth capacity will be measured as compensatory growth rate, over a 14-day period of ad libitum feeding after a 14-day period of feed deprivation. Metabolic rate will be measured as oxygen uptake, from air and water, by automated respirometry in normoxic water. Tendency to take risks will be evaluated as rates of air breathing which, in nature, puts facultative air breathing fish at unnecessary risk of predation, and also as the time required to return to air breathing after a fearful stimulus. The expectation is that rapidly-growing individuals will have high routine metabolic rates because they are more active and tend to air-breathe more. Following these experiments, individual catfish will be selected that displayed either the highest or the lowest rates of compensatory growth (N = 10 each). Respirometry experiments will be performed to investigate the hypothesis that individuals with rapid growth can process meals more rapidly. It is expected that this will be because they have a greater tendency to air-breathe to raise their metabolic rate to complete digestion. (AU)

Scientific publications

(References retrieved automatically from Web of Science and SciELO through information on FAPESP grants and their corresponding numbers as mentioned in the publications by the authors)

BLASCO, FELIPE R.; MCKENZIE, DAVID J.; TAYLOR, EDWIN W.; RANTIN, F. TADEU. The role of the autonomic nervous system in control of cardiac and air-breathing responses to sustained aerobic exercise in the African sharptooth catfish Clarias gariepinus. COMPARATIVE BIOCHEMISTRY AND PHYSIOLOGY A-MOLECULAR & INTEGRATIVE PHYSIOLOGY, v. 203, p. 273-280, JAN 2017. (12/24496-2, 15/22326-0)