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Can Hypoxia Tolerance Explain Differences in Distribution of Two Co-Occurring North Temperate Sunfishes?

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Abstract

Many small, isolated north temperate waterbodies experience hypoxic conditions and winterkill events. Although such waterbodies are found in the natural ranges of two congeneric sunfishes (pumpkinseed, Lepomis gibbosus and bluegill, L. macrochirus), many contain pumpkinseed but no bluegill; a biogeographic pattern that has remained unexplained. To test whether a greater hypoxia tolerance in pumpkinseeds could explain these differences in distribution, we conducted hypoxia tolerance trials by subjecting each species to declining oxygen concentrations over ca. 16 h in aquaria. We also measured the activities of key metabolic enzymes in the muscle of wild individuals. Pumpkinseeds showed significantly higher tolerance to hypoxic stress than bluegills, as indicated by dissolved oxygen concentration at the time of equilibrium loss. Consistent with this result, white muscle from pumpkinseed had higher levels of lactate dehydrogenase, a marker enzyme for anaerobic capacity. There was no difference between species in the activity level of pyruvate kinase, suggesting that pumpkinseed do not display a general upregulation of glycolysis, but rather an upregulation of anaerobic capacity. Our results support the hypothesis that evolved differences in winter hypoxia tolerance can act as a macrohabitat partitioning mechanism in North American sunfishes.

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Acknowledgements

Financial support for this research was provided by a National Science and Engineering Research Council (Canada) Discovery Grant to MGF, CDM and GB. M. Bérubé, J. MacLeod and B. Tufts provided assistance in the field. Two anonymous reviewers provided helpful comments on an earlier draft of this manuscript.

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  1. Michelle Farwell

    Present address: Department of Integrative Biology, University of Guelph, Guelph, ON, N1G 2W1, Canada

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biology, Trent University, Peterborough, ON, K9J 7B8, Canada

    Michelle Farwell & Gary Burness

  2. Environmental, and Resource Studies Program and Department of Biology, Trent University, Peterborough, ON, K9J 7B8, Canada

    Michael G. Fox

  3. Department of Biology, Queen’s University, Kingston, ON, K7L 3N6, Canada

    Christopher D. Moyes

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  1. Michelle Farwell
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  2. Michael G. Fox
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Correspondence to Michelle Farwell.

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Farwell, M., Fox, M.G., Moyes, C.D. et al. Can Hypoxia Tolerance Explain Differences in Distribution of Two Co-Occurring North Temperate Sunfishes?. Environ Biol Fish 78, 83–90 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10641-006-9079-3

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