Behavioural thermoregulatory tactics in lacustrine brook charr, Salvelinus fontinalis.

ABSTRACT: The need to vary body temperature to optimize physiological processes can lead to thermoregulatory behaviours, particularly in ectotherms. Despite some evidence of within-population phenotypic variation in thermal behaviour, the occurrence of alternative tactics of this behaviour is rarely explicitly considered when studying natural populations. The main objective of this study was to determine whether different thermal tactics exist among individuals of the same population. We studied the behavioural thermoregulation of 33 adult brook charr in a stratified lake using thermo-sensitive radio transmitters that measured hourly individual temperature over one month. The observed behavioural thermoregulatory patterns were consistent between years and suggest the existence of four tactics: two "

SUBMITTER: Bertolo A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3072417 | biostudies-literature | 2011 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature