SGER: Linking Physiological Performance to Population Demography in a Temperate Reef Fish

生理过程及其对个体和种群的生态影响之间的联系尚不清楚，尽管有人认为这种联系可能具有重要的后果。生理学家和生态学家都强调需要将生理学和种群生态学结合起来，分别解释招募成功的变化和生理条件的生态相关性。为此目的设计的实验从未发表过，甚至可能从未尝试过。这个项目的目标是将生理性能与温带珊瑚礁鱼类最近定居的生存相结合，海带鲈鱼。研究人员将采用一种新颖的方法，在海底设置专门建造的潜水隧道，实地测量游泳表现和代谢率，然后将鱼类放在实验海带床上，随后记录捕食者？诱发死亡率。这种方法意味着在记录生理测量时尽可能减少压力的影响。海带鲈鱼很容易沉降到悬浮在水柱上的塑料网装置上。水肺完全在水下工作，从这些设备中收集鱼类，放置在附近的游泳隧道中，测量游泳性能和代谢率，用弹性体（有色硅树脂）单独标记鱼类，然后释放到在沙底建造的小型实验海带床上。监测有标记的鱼将在2？3周的时间来确定老年同种鱼的死亡率是否与先前测量的个人游泳表现或代谢率相关。

Links between physiological processes and their ecological implications to individuals and populations are poorly understood despite suggestions that such links may have important consequences. Both physiologists and ecologists underscore the need to couple physiology and population ecology in explaining variation in recruitment success and the ecological relevancy of physiological condition, respectively. Experiments designed for this purpose have never been published or possibly even attempted. The goal of this project is to couple physiological performance with the survival of recent settlers of a temperate reef fish, the kelp bass Paralabrax clathratus. A novel approach will be employed in which specially constructed submersible swim tunnels will be positioned on the sea bottom for in situ measurements of swimming performance and metabolic rate, followed by placing fish on experimental kelp beds and subsequently recording predator?induced mortality rate. This approach is meant to reduce as much as possible any effects of stress in recording physiological measurements. Kelp bass settle readily to plastic mesh devices suspended in the water column. Working completely underwater on SCUBA, fish will be collected from these devices, placed in swim tunnels stationed nearby, swimming performance and metabolic rate measured, fish marked individually with elastomer (colored silicone), and then released to small experimental kelp beds constructed on sand bottom. Monitoring of marked fish will be done over a 2?3 week period to determine if mortality from older conspecifics is correlated with previously measured individual swimming performance or metabolic rate.