FishOtlilithPhysio - Fish Otolith Physiology, and Implications for Climate Change, Conservation, and Fisheries Management

耳石是鱼类内耳中生物矿化的碳酸钙结构，用于平衡和听力。耳石在鱼的一生中不断生长，形成连续的年轮，可以像树木一样老化。今天，渔业管理人员计算耳石环来估计年龄，然后将其纳入年龄结构模型来估计野生鱼类种群。渔业管理人员然后使用这些耳石依赖模型来设定捕捞限制，以可持续地规范渔业并防止过度捕捞。许多科学家还分析了耳石的同位素和元素特征，以收集历史环境和代谢因素，如鱼所经历的温度，饮食和盐度。因此，耳石是生态学、迁徙生物学、保护、古生物学和渔业研究的宝贵工具。尽管它的重要性，我们的机械耳石生物矿化的理解仍然很差。此外，气候变化也会影响耳石：海洋变暖和酸化会加速生物矿化，而缺氧则会减少生物矿化。这种机制知识的缺乏会威胁到耳石依赖模型的准确性，进而影响未来气候变化下的管理。因此，迫切需要对内耳如何生物矿化耳石，其年轮及其元素特征进行基础性了解。这项建议汇集了加菲猫关博士，罗德威尔逊和克莱夫特鲁曼（借调），谁共同拥有世界领先的专业知识和国家的最先进的设施，鱼类生理学，内耳细胞生物学和海洋地球化学必要的调查离子运输途径负责耳石对变暖，酸化，缺氧和喂养的反应。这些知识对于了解鱼类耳石如何应对未来的气候情景至关重要，并保护世界各地社区的现代耳石依赖工具，沿海经济，渔业和粮食安全。

Otoliths are calcium carbonate structures biomineralized in the inner ear of fish, and are used for balance and hearing. Otoliths grow continuously throughout the fish's life, forming continuous rings that can be aged much like trees. Today, fishery managers count otolith rings to estimate age, which is then incorporated into age-structured models to estimate wild fish populations. Fishery managers then use these otolith-reliant models to set catch limits to sustainably regulate fisheries and prevent overfishing. Many scientists also analyze the isotopic and elemental signatures of otoliths to gather historical environmental and metabolic factors such as temperature, diet, and salinity as experienced by the fish. Thus, the otolith is an invaluable tool for ecology, migratory biology, conservation, paleobiology, and fishery research. Despite its importance, our mechanistic understanding of otolith biomineralization remains poor. Furthermore, climate change will affect otoliths: ocean warming and acidification accelerate biomineralization, while hypoxia reduces it. This lack of mechanistic knowledge threatens the accuracy of otolith-reliant models, and by extension fisheriesmanagement under future climate change. Thus, there is an urgent need to develop foundational understanding on how the inner ear biomineralizes the otolith, its annual rings, and its elemental signatures. This proposal brings together Drs. Garfield Kwan, Rod Wilson, and Clive Trueman (secondment), who collectively have the world-leading expertise and state-of-the-art facilities in fish physiology, inner ear cell biology, and biogeochemistry necessary to investigate the ion-transport pathways responsible for otolith responses to warming, acidification, hypoxia, and feeding. This knowledge is critical to understanding how fish otoliths respond to future climate scenarios, and safeguard modern otolith-reliant tools, coastal economies, fisheries, and food security for communities around the world.