Future thermal regimes for epaulette sharks (Hemiscyllium ocellatum): growth and metabolic performance cease to be optimal.

ABSTRACT: Climate change is affecting thermal regimes globally, and organisms relying on their environment to regulate biological processes face unknown consequences. In ectotherms, temperature affects development rates, body condition, and performance. Embryonic stages may be the most vulnerable life history stages, especially for oviparous species already living at the warm edge of their distribution, as embryos cannot relocate during this developmental window. We reared 27 epaulette shark (Hemiscyllium ocellatum) embryos under average summer conditions (27 °C) or temperatures predicted for the middle and end of the twenty-first century with climate change (i.e., 29 and 31 °C) and tracked growth, development, and metabolic costs both in ovo and upon hatch. Rearing sharks at 31 °C impacted embryoni

SUBMITTER: Wheeler CR 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7804200 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature