Seasonal temperatures in South Eleuthera, The Bahamas, have considerable impacts on the cardiorespiratory function and swimming performance of Nassau grouper (Epinephelus striatus)

Abstract

Surprisingly, the impacts of environmental changes on the physiology of tropical/subtropical marine fishes have received limited attention. Given that (i) temperature is considered to be a key factor controlling the biology of fishes; (ii) no published data are available on the swimming performance, metabolic capacity or cardiac function of any of the ~165 grouper species worldwide; and (iii) the Nassau grouper is an endangered species of great ecological and socioeconomic significance in The Bahamas, we investigated how current summer/early fall (30°C) and winter (22°C) temperatures in South Eleuthera affected the aerobic metabolism and heart function of wild Nassau grouper when swum to exhaustion (i.e. to their critical swimming speed, Ucrit). The Nassau grouper had a very low Ucrit at 30°C (i.e. <1 body lengths s−1), and a 30% lower swimming performance during the winter (at 22°C), and this was that was indicative of a reduced absolute aerobic scope (~185 vs. 290 mg O2 kg−1 h−1) and values of maximum heart rate ($f$HMax) and scope for $f$H that were only one-half of that achieved at 30°C (~60 vs. 120 and 29 vs. 61 beats min−1, respectively). Overall, these data reveal that the Nassau grouper’s aerobic and swimming capacity are well below values reported for other tropical/subtropical fishes and suggest that, despite a compensatory (~30–40%) increase in stroke volume, constraints on $f$H near this species’ lower thermal limit negatively affect its cardiac output and swimming performance. These findings have considerable ecological implications as Bahamian grouper populations migrate over long distances to spawn during the winter months, and given the predicted increase in temperature variability with climate change.