The short-term stress response of three-spined sticklebacks to climate-related stressors: a mesocosm study
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PRIMARY RESEARCH PAPER
The short-term stress response of three-spined sticklebacks to climate-related stressors: a mesocosm study Tom G. Pottinger
. Heidrun Feuchtmayr
Received: 9 April 2020 / Revised: 30 July 2020 / Accepted: 23 August 2020 / Published online: 1 September 2020 Ó Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020
Abstract Fish in northern European lakes must cope with climate change, including frequent extreme weather events, and eutrophication. In terrestrial vertebrates the disruption of local environmental stability can evoke a stress response, with potentially adverse outcomes for growth, reproduction and survival, but the effect of extreme weather events on aquatic vertebrates is not understood. As part of a mesocosm scale multiple-stressor study we investigated (i) whether three-spined sticklebacks (Gasterosteus aculeatus L.) exhibited an acute stress response (by measuring the steroid hormone cortisol) to simulated rainfall events, and (ii) whether any such response was modified by elevated temperature and nutrient concentrations. On two occasions, sticklebacks were sampled 1 h and 24 h following the simulated rainfall event. Cortisol levels were elevated within 1 h of the rainfall event in November in fish from heated tanks (with and without nutrient
Handling editor: Fernando M. Pelicice
Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (https://doi.org/10.1007/s10750-020-04393-w) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. T. G. Pottinger (&) H. Feuchtmayr UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology, Lancaster Environment Centre, Library Avenue, Bailrigg, Lancaster LA1 4AP, UK e-mail: [email protected]
augmentation). In May, cortisol increased within 1 h of the rainfall event but only in fish from nutrientenriched mesocosms (heated and unheated). Cortisol had declined to control levels within 24 h on both occasions. This outcome suggests that the acute effect on fish of transient stressors, such as extreme rainfall events, may be modified by other environmental factors, but that interactions between these variables may be difficult to predict. Keywords Climate change Extreme weather Shallow lakes Fish Multiple stressors
Introduction Small freshwater water bodies, such as shallow lakes or ponds, which represent a major proportion of inland surface waters, are particularly vulnerable to the influence of extrinsic anthropogenic factors and climate change (Downing et al., 2006; Moran et al., 2010; Jeppesen et al., 2014) including climate warming, and in particular to the extreme rainfall events that are predicted to become more frequent as the climate changes (Lehmann et al., 2015). Eutrophication remains a major anthropogenic pressure for freshwater ecosystems too, and the consequences of this increasingly challenging combination of environmental and anthropogenic factors for fish within freshwaters are
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unknown because of the range of interacting and interdependent factors that must be taken i
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