Behavioural responses of a cold-water benthivore to loss of oxythermal habitat.

ABSTRACT: Climate-driven declines in oxythermal habitat in freshwater lakes can impose prolonged constraints on cold-water fishes sensitive to hypoxia. How fish cope with severe habitat limitations is not well understood, yet has implications for their persistence. Here, we use acoustic-positioning telemetry to assess seasonal habitat occupancy and activity patterns of lake whitefish (Coregonus clupeaformis), a cold-water benthivore, in a small boreal lake that regularly faces severe oxythermal constraints during summer stratification. During this stratified period, they rarely (< 15% of detections) occupied depths with water temperatures > 10 °C (interquartile range = 5.3-7.9 °C), which resulted in extensive use (> 90% of detections) of water with < 4 mg L^-1 dissolved oxygen (DO;

SUBMITTER: Rodrigues TH 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9592630 | biostudies-literature | 2022

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature