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Porteus CS, Khodikian E, Tigert LR, Ren GJ, Yoon GR. Commentary: Best practices for performing olfactory behavioral assays on aquatic animals: A guide for comparative physiologists. Comp Biochem Physiol A Mol Integr Physiol 2024; 298:111747. [PMID: 39313183 DOI: 10.1016/j.cbpa.2024.111747] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/02/2024] [Revised: 09/16/2024] [Accepted: 09/16/2024] [Indexed: 09/25/2024]
Abstract
As more physiologists start to incorporate animal behavior into their experiments, especially in the olfactory behavior research field, some considerations are often overlooked, partly due to the inherited way that physiological experiments are traditionally designed and performed. Here we highlight some of these subtle but important considerations and make a case for why these might affect the results collected from behavioral assays. Our aim is to provide useful suggestions for increased standardization of methods so they can be more easily replicated among different experiments and laboratories. We have focused on areas that are less likely to be mentioned in the materials and methods section of a manuscript such as starvation, preliminary experiments, appropriate sample sizes and considerations when choosing an odorant for an assay. Additionally, we are strongly cautioning against the use of alarm cue to generate behavioral responses due to its highly unstable chemical properties/potency. Instead, we suggest using pure chemicals (made up of one known molecule) such as amino acids, bile acids, or polyamines that are commercially available and easier to make up in known concentrations. Lastly, we strongly suggest using environmentally relevant concentrations of these odorants. We believe these guidelines will help standardize these assays and improve replication of experiments within and between laboratories.
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Affiliation(s)
- Cosima S Porteus
- Biological Sciences, University of Toronto Scarborough, Toronto, ON, Canada; Cells and Systems Biology, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada.
| | - Elissa Khodikian
- Biological Sciences, University of Toronto Scarborough, Toronto, ON, Canada; Cells and Systems Biology, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada
| | - Liam R Tigert
- Biological Sciences, University of Toronto Scarborough, Toronto, ON, Canada; Cells and Systems Biology, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada. https://twitter.com/LiamTigert
| | - Gary J Ren
- Biological Sciences, University of Toronto Scarborough, Toronto, ON, Canada; Cells and Systems Biology, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada
| | - Gwangseok R Yoon
- Biological Sciences, University of Toronto Scarborough, Toronto, ON, Canada; School of Marine and Environmental Programs, University of New England, Biddeford, ME, USA. https://twitter.com/gwangseokyoon
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Sundin J. The effects of ocean acidification on fishes - history and future outlook. JOURNAL OF FISH BIOLOGY 2023; 103:765-772. [PMID: 36648022 DOI: 10.1111/jfb.15323] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/30/2022] [Accepted: 01/14/2023] [Indexed: 06/17/2023]
Abstract
The effects of increased levels of carbon dioxide (CO2 ) on the Earth's temperature have been known since the end of the 19th century. It was long believed that the oceans' buffering capacity would counteract any effects of dissolved CO2 in marine environments, but during recent decades, many studies have reported detrimental effects of ocean acidification on aquatic organisms. The most prominent effects can be found within the field of behavioural ecology, e.g., complete reversal of predator avoidance behaviour in CO2 -exposed coral reef fish. Some of the studies have been very influential, receiving hundreds of citations over recent years. The results have also been conveyed to policymakers and publicized in prominent media outlets for the general public. Those extreme effects of ocean acidification on fish behaviour have, however, spurred controversy, given that more than a century of research suggests that there are few or no negative effects of elevated CO2 on fish physiology. This is due to sophisticated acid-base regulatory mechanisms that should enable their resilience to near-future increases in CO2 . In addition, an extreme "decline effect" has recently been shown in the literature regarding ocean acidification and fish behaviour, and independent research groups have been unable to replicate some of the most profound effects. Here, the author presents a brief historical overview on the effects of elevated CO2 and ocean acidification on fishes. This historical recap is warranted because earlier work, prior to a recent (c. 10 year) explosion in interest, is often overlooked in today's ocean acidification studies, despite its value to the field. Based on the historical data and the current knowledge status, the author suggests future strategies with the aim to improve research rigour and clarify the understanding of the effects of ocean acidification on fishes.
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Affiliation(s)
- Josefin Sundin
- Department of Aquatic Resources, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Drottningholm, Sweden
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Elvidge CK, Robinson CE, Caza RA, Hewitt LM, Frank RA, Orihel DM. Chemical communication in wood frog (Rana sylvatica) tadpoles is influenced by early-life exposure to naphthenic acid fraction compounds. AQUATIC TOXICOLOGY (AMSTERDAM, NETHERLANDS) 2023; 257:106435. [PMID: 36889125 DOI: 10.1016/j.aquatox.2023.106435] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/05/2022] [Revised: 01/17/2023] [Accepted: 02/16/2023] [Indexed: 06/18/2023]
Abstract
Environmental pollutants can disrupt chemical communication between aquatic organisms by interfering with the production, transmission, and/or detection of, as well as responses to, chemical cues. Here, we test the hypothesis that early-life exposure to naphthenic acid fraction compounds (NAFCs) from oil sands tailings disrupts antipredator-associated chemical communication in larval amphibians. Wild adult wood frogs (Rana sylvatica) captured during their natural breeding period were combined (1 female:2 males) in six replicate mesocosms filled with either uncontaminated lakewater or with NAFCs isolated from an active tailings pond in Alberta, Canada, at nominal 5 mg/L concentrations. Egg clutches were incubated and tadpoles maintained in their respective mesocosms for ∼40 days post-hatch. Tadpoles (Gosner stage 25-31) were then transferred individually to trial arenas filled with uncontaminated water and exposed to one of six chemical alarm cue (AC) stimuli solutions following a 3 × 2 × 2 design (3 AC types × 2 stimulus carriers × 2 rearing exposure groups). Relative to control tadpoles, NAFC-exposed tadpoles demonstrated higher baseline activity levels (line crosses and direction changes) when introduced to uncontaminated water. Antipredator responses differed in graded fashion with AC type, with control ACs eliciting the greatest latency to resume activity, water the least, and NAFC-exposed ACs intermediate. Pre- to post-stimulus difference scores were non-significant in control tadpoles, while NAFC-exposed tadpoles demonstrated significantly greater variation. While this suggests that exposure to NAFCs from fertilization through hatching may have interfered with AC production, it is unclear whether the quality or quantity of cues was affected. There was also no clear evidence that NAFC carrier water interfered with ACs or the alarm response in unexposed control tadpoles. These results emphasize the importance of understanding how behavioral and physiological effects of early-life NAFC exposure on critical antipredator responses may persist across life history stages.
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Affiliation(s)
- Chris K Elvidge
- Department of Biology, Queen's University, 116 Barrie Street, Kingston, ON K7L 3N6, Canada.
| | - Chloe E Robinson
- Department of Biology, Queen's University, 116 Barrie Street, Kingston, ON K7L 3N6, Canada
| | - Rowena A Caza
- Department of Biology, Queen's University, 116 Barrie Street, Kingston, ON K7L 3N6, Canada
| | - L Mark Hewitt
- Water Science and Technology Directorate, Environment and Climate Change Canada, Burlington, ON L7S 1A1, Canada
| | - Richard A Frank
- Water Science and Technology Directorate, Environment and Climate Change Canada, Burlington, ON L7S 1A1, Canada
| | - Diane M Orihel
- Department of Biology, Queen's University, 116 Barrie Street, Kingston, ON K7L 3N6, Canada; School of Environmental Studies, Queen's University, 116 Barrie Street, Kingston, ON K7L 3N6, Canada
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Tigert LR, Porteus CS. Invited review - the effects of anthropogenic abiotic stressors on the sensory systems of fishes. Comp Biochem Physiol A Mol Integr Physiol 2023; 277:111366. [PMID: 36586568 DOI: 10.1016/j.cbpa.2022.111366] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/18/2022] [Revised: 12/04/2022] [Accepted: 12/27/2022] [Indexed: 12/30/2022]
Abstract
Climate change is a growing global issue with many countries and institutions declaring a climate state of emergency. Excess CO2 from anthropogenic sources and changes in land use practices are contributing to many detrimental changes, including increased global temperatures, ocean acidification and hypoxic zones along coastal habitats. All senses are important for aquatic animals, as it is how they can perceive and respond to their environment. Some of these environmental challenges have been shown to impair their sensory systems, including the olfactory, visual, and auditory systems. While most of the research is focused on how ocean acidification affects olfaction, there is also evidence that it negatively affects vision and hearing. The effects that temperature and hypoxia have on the senses have also been investigated, but to a much lesser extent in comparison to ocean acidification. This review assembles the known information on how these anthropogenic challenges affect the sensory systems of fishes, but also highlights what gaps in knowledge remain with suggestions for immediate action. Olfaction, vision, otolith, pH, freshwater, seawater, marine, central nervous system, electrophysiology, mechanism.
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Affiliation(s)
- Liam R Tigert
- Department of Biological Sciences, University of Toronto Scarborough, Toronto, ON M1C 1A4, Canada.
| | - Cosima S Porteus
- Department of Biological Sciences, University of Toronto Scarborough, Toronto, ON M1C 1A4, Canada. https://twitter.com/cosimaporteus
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Long-term acclimation to near-future ocean acidification has negligible effects on energetic attributes in a juvenile coral reef fish. Oecologia 2019; 190:689-702. [DOI: 10.1007/s00442-019-04430-z] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/04/2018] [Accepted: 06/03/2019] [Indexed: 10/26/2022]
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McCormick MI, Ferrari MC, Fakan EP, Barry RP, Chivers DP. Diet cues and their utility for risk assessment in degraded habitats. Anim Behav 2019. [DOI: 10.1016/j.anbehav.2019.04.005] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 10/26/2022]
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Warming-induced shifts in amphibian phenology and behavior lead to altered predator-prey dynamics. Oecologia 2019; 189:803-813. [PMID: 30810801 DOI: 10.1007/s00442-019-04360-w] [Citation(s) in RCA: 10] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/12/2017] [Accepted: 02/18/2019] [Indexed: 10/27/2022]
Abstract
Climate change-induced phenological variation in amphibians can disrupt time-sensitive processes such as breeding, hatching, and metamorphosis, and can consequently alter size-dependent interactions such as predation. Temperature can further alter size-dependent, predator-prey relationships through changes in species' behavior. We thus hypothesized that phenological shifts due to climate warming would alter the predator-prey dynamic in a larval amphibian community through changes in body size and behavior of both the predator and prey. We utilized an amphibian predator-prey system common to the montane wetlands of the U.S. Pacific Northwest: the long-toed salamander (Ambystoma macrodactylum) and its anuran prey, the Pacific chorus frog (Pseudacris regilla). We conducted predation trials to test if changes in predator phenology and environmental temperature influence predation success. We simulated predator phenological shifts using different size classes of the long-toed salamander representing an earlier onset of breeding while using spring temperatures corresponding to early and mid-season larval rearing conditions. Our results indicated that the predator-prey dynamic was highly dependent upon predator phenology and temperature, and both acted synergistically. Increased size asymmetry resulted in higher tadpole predation rates and tadpole tail damage. Both predators and prey altered activity and locomotor performance in warmer treatments. Consequently, behavioral modifications resulted in decreased survival rates of tadpoles in the presence of large salamander larvae. If predators shift to breed disproportionately earlier than prey due to climate warming, this has the potential to negatively impact tadpole populations in high-elevation amphibian assemblages through changes in predation rates mediated by behavior.
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Bairos-Novak KR, Crane AL, Chivers DP, Ferrari MCO. Better the devil you know? How familiarity and kinship affect prey responses to disturbance cues. Behav Ecol 2018. [DOI: 10.1093/beheco/ary184] [Citation(s) in RCA: 9] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/12/2022] Open
Affiliation(s)
| | - Adam L Crane
- Department of Biology, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, Canada
| | - Douglas P Chivers
- Department of Biology, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, Canada
| | - Maud C O Ferrari
- Department of Biomedical Sciences, Western College of Veterinary Medicine, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, Canada
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McCormick MI, Chivers DP, Allan BJM, Ferrari MCO. Habitat degradation disrupts neophobia in juvenile coral reef fish. GLOBAL CHANGE BIOLOGY 2017; 23:719-727. [PMID: 27393344 DOI: 10.1111/gcb.13393] [Citation(s) in RCA: 18] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/24/2016] [Accepted: 06/01/2016] [Indexed: 06/06/2023]
Abstract
Habitat degradation not only disrupts habitat-forming species, but alters the sensory landscape within which most species must balance behavioural activities against predation risk. Rapidly developing a cautious behavioural phenotype, a condition known as neophobia, is advantageous when entering a novel risky habitat. Many aquatic organisms rely on damage-released conspecific cues (i.e. alarm cues) as an indicator of impending danger and use them to assess general risk and develop neophobia. This study tested whether settlement-stage damselfish associated with degraded coral reef habitats were able to use alarm cues as an indicator of risk and, in turn, develop a neophobic response at the end of their larval phase. Our results indicate that fish in live coral habitats that were exposed to alarm cues developed neophobia, and, in situ, were found to be more cautious, more closely associated with their coral shelters and survived four-times better than non-neophobic control fish. In contrast, fish that settled onto degraded coral habitats did not exhibit neophobia and consequently suffered much greater mortality on the reef, regardless of their history of exposure to alarm cues. Our results show that habitat degradation alters the efficacy of alarm cues with phenotypic and survival consequences for newly settled recruits.
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Affiliation(s)
- Mark I McCormick
- ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies, College of Marine and Environmental Sciences, James Cook University, Townsville, Qld, 4811, Australia
| | - Douglas P Chivers
- Department of Biology, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, SK, S7N 5E2, Canada
| | - Bridie J M Allan
- ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies, College of Marine and Environmental Sciences, James Cook University, Townsville, Qld, 4811, Australia
| | - Maud C O Ferrari
- Department of Biomedical Sciences, WCVM, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, SK, S7W 5B4, Canada
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Nagelkerken I, Munday PL. Animal behaviour shapes the ecological effects of ocean acidification and warming: moving from individual to community-level responses. GLOBAL CHANGE BIOLOGY 2016; 22:974-89. [PMID: 26700211 DOI: 10.1111/gcb.13167] [Citation(s) in RCA: 169] [Impact Index Per Article: 21.1] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/14/2015] [Accepted: 11/05/2015] [Indexed: 05/04/2023]
Abstract
Biological communities are shaped by complex interactions between organisms and their environment as well as interactions with other species. Humans are rapidly changing the marine environment through increasing greenhouse gas emissions, resulting in ocean warming and acidification. The first response by animals to environmental change is predominantly through modification of their behaviour, which in turn affects species interactions and ecological processes. Yet, many climate change studies ignore animal behaviour. Furthermore, our current knowledge of how global change alters animal behaviour is mostly restricted to single species, life phases and stressors, leading to an incomplete view of how coinciding climate stressors can affect the ecological interactions that structure biological communities. Here, we first review studies on the effects of warming and acidification on the behaviour of marine animals. We demonstrate how pervasive the effects of global change are on a wide range of critical behaviours that determine the persistence of species and their success in ecological communities. We then evaluate several approaches to studying the ecological effects of warming and acidification, and identify knowledge gaps that need to be filled, to better understand how global change will affect marine populations and communities through altered animal behaviours. Our review provides a synthesis of the far-reaching consequences that behavioural changes could have for marine ecosystems in a rapidly changing environment. Without considering the pervasive effects of climate change on animal behaviour we will limit our ability to forecast the impacts of ocean change and provide insights that can aid management strategies.
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Affiliation(s)
- Ivan Nagelkerken
- Southern Seas Ecology Laboratories, School of Biological Sciences and The Environment Institute, The University of Adelaide, DX 650 418, Adelaide, SA, 5005, Australia
| | - Philip L Munday
- ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies, James Cook University, Townsville, Qld, 4811, Australia
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