Ocean acidification boosts larval fish development but reduces the window of opportunity for successful settlement.

ABSTRACT: Locating appropriate settlement habitat is a crucial step in the life cycle of most benthic marine animals. In marine fish, this step involves the use of multiple senses, including audition, olfaction and vision. To date, most investigations of larval fish audition focus on the hearing thresholds to various frequencies of sounds without testing an ecological response to such sounds. Identifying responses to biologically relevant sounds at the development stage in which orientation is most relevant is fundamental. We tested for the existence of ontogenetic windows of reception to sounds that could act as orientation cues with a focus on vulnerability to alteration by human impacts. Here we show that larvae of a catadromous fish species (barramundi, Lates calcarifer) were attracted towards s

SUBMITTER: Rossi T 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4707749 | biostudies-literature | 2015 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature