THERMOS · Thermal phenotypes and behavioural syndromes as predictors of resilience to climate change in European freshwater fish
Horizon 2020 — Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions
- Duration
- 2020-10-21 → 2022-10-20
- EU contribution
- €212,934
- Participants
- 1
- Scheme
- MSCA-IF
Lines connect the coordinator with its partners.
Results in brief
Thermal phenotypes and behavioural syndromes as predictors of resilience to climate change in European freshwater fish
Climate change is resulting in warming air temperatures, with the rate of change progressing substantially faster than previous natural climate change events. Predicting, preventing and/ or ameliorating the consequences of climate change is thus a major strategic objective for the European Union, particularly in respect of ecology and biodiversity. In Europe, while many species are shifting their distributions to areas of higher latitude and/ or altitude to track their ‘climate niche’, this can be constrained if habitats are closed environments, such as river catchments that have physical boundaries which inhibit the inter-catchment movements of species. In fishes, the fine-tuning of body temperatures can be achieved through ‘behavioural thermoregulation’, where individuals utilise microhabitats that provide their preferred thermal conditions, especially as some rivers are characterised by high variability in their water temperatures. However, the extent to which river fishes might have inherent resilience to warming through their behavioural thermoregulation remains unknown, despite the responses of biodiversity to climate change will of high societal importance through ensuring populations remain sustainable despite warming effects, and understandings of population resilience being important for management responses. This project was designed to specifically overcome this major knowledge gap through two objectives. Firstly, we quantified the in-river movements of European barbel (a climatically sensitive fish) in a lowland river to test how the body temperatures of individuals vary from their general environment, and how these differences relate to their movements and traits. We then experimentally quantified (in laboratory conditions), the thermal and behavioural phenotypes of European barbel in relation to pro-active and active behavioural syndromes and pace of life syndromes. The accomplishment of both objectives increases understandings of the resilience of riverine fishes to climate change, especially in relation to the interaction of individual phenotypes with environment changes.
Data: CORDIS, © European Union
Project objective
Predicting, preventing and/ or ameliorating the consequences of climate change is a major strategic objective of the European Union, particularly regarding ecology and biodiversity. Many species compromised by warming have shifted their distributions to areas of higher latitude to track their ‘climate niche’. However, the ability of compromised species to track their climate niche is constrained if their habitats are closed environments, such as river catchments whose physical boundaries inhibit species’ movements between catchments. Many freshwater species can thus only respond to warming in-situ. In fishes, fine-tuning of body temperatures can be through ‘behavioural thermoregulation’, where individuals use microhabitats that provide their preferred thermal conditions, assisted by rivers providing highly heterogeneous thermal environments. There is, however, a substantial knowledge gap on how freshwater fish are altering their behaviour and habitat utilisation in rivers that are warming due to climate change, and how this confers resilience to populations from the damaging effects of temperature increases. Through strong reciprocal knowledge transfer, and high complementarity between all participants and the proposed research, the research quantifies the extent to which the behavioural thermoregulation of river fishes is governed by specific phenotypes within a pace-of-life-syndrome that provides vulnerable populations with inherent resilience to climate change. The Action delivers innovative and novel research by bringing together a highly talented researcher with substantial knowledge in freshwater fish ecology with a European research group with exceptional expertise in fish telemetry and behaviour, and microclimate ecology. The high complementarity of all participants enables use of state-of-the-art and innovative approaches to develop novel predictive models for quantifying the resilience of climatically vulnerable species to global temperature changes.
Original text from CORDIS.
Participants
- BOURNEMOUTH UNIVERSITY · POOLECoordinatorUnited Kingdom
Links
Data: CORDIS, © European Union