TY - JOUR
T1 - Latitudinal compensation in female reproductive rate of a geographically widespread reef fish
AU - Kokita, Tomoyuki
N1 - Funding Information:
I thank T.J. Donaldson, J.A. Holmes, P.F. Sale and an anonymous reviewer for their critical reading of the manuscript and helpful comments and A. Nakazono, Y. Tanaka and K. Yamahira for providing much useful information during this study. Y. Hirano kindly provided seawater temperature data from Kominato. I also appreciate the help given by the staff of the Fisheries Research Station, Kyushu University for the common-environmental experiments, the staff of Sesoko Station, Tropical Biosphere Research Center, University of the Ryukyus and the staff of the Marine Biosystems Research Center, Chiba University for providing facilities for the field work. This study was supported financially by Research Fellowships from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science for Young Scientists and the Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (No. 12000307) from the Japan Ministry of Education, Science, Sports and Culture, Japan.
PY - 2004/11
Y1 - 2004/11
N2 - Latitudinal variation in fitness-related traits has often been attributed to local adaptation to climates. In poikilotherms including fishes, lower temperatures and shorter reproductive seasons at high latitudes would be expected to cause a reduction in annual reproductive output of an individual. Theories of latitudinal compensation predict that organisms at high latitudes should evolve compensatory responses for these climatic effects. Therefore, latitudinal compensation in female reproductive rate (egg production rate), that individuals from high latitudes produce eggs at higher rates than those from lower latitudes, is likely to occur. I tested this hypothesis with a latitudinally widespread reef fish Pomacentrus coelestis that is a multiple batch spawner, from three different localities, from temperate to subtropical waters, within Japan. I used common-environment experiments at three different temperatures to compare reproductive capacity among local populations. In the experiments, average inter-spawning intervals were the shortest and average size-specific clutch weight was the heaviest in fish from the most northern locality across all temperatures, showing clear latitudinal clines. Thus, the northern fish can achieve higher reproductive output per unit time both by shortening inter-spawning intervals and increasing size-specific clutch weight. Additionally, faster egg production rate of the northern fish did not result from increased food consumption. This finding suggests that gross egg production efficiency was higher in the northern fish and that northern fish had a superior capacity for reproduction within a season. These results support the prediction that latitudinal compensation occurs in the female reproductive rate of P. coelestis. As the reproductive season of this species decreases drastically with increasing latitude, the observed cline in the reproductive rate must be an adaptive response to the local selective regime, i.e., length of the reproductive season. Such latitudinal compensation in female reproductive rates may be a common pattern in latitudinally widespread fishes.
AB - Latitudinal variation in fitness-related traits has often been attributed to local adaptation to climates. In poikilotherms including fishes, lower temperatures and shorter reproductive seasons at high latitudes would be expected to cause a reduction in annual reproductive output of an individual. Theories of latitudinal compensation predict that organisms at high latitudes should evolve compensatory responses for these climatic effects. Therefore, latitudinal compensation in female reproductive rate (egg production rate), that individuals from high latitudes produce eggs at higher rates than those from lower latitudes, is likely to occur. I tested this hypothesis with a latitudinally widespread reef fish Pomacentrus coelestis that is a multiple batch spawner, from three different localities, from temperate to subtropical waters, within Japan. I used common-environment experiments at three different temperatures to compare reproductive capacity among local populations. In the experiments, average inter-spawning intervals were the shortest and average size-specific clutch weight was the heaviest in fish from the most northern locality across all temperatures, showing clear latitudinal clines. Thus, the northern fish can achieve higher reproductive output per unit time both by shortening inter-spawning intervals and increasing size-specific clutch weight. Additionally, faster egg production rate of the northern fish did not result from increased food consumption. This finding suggests that gross egg production efficiency was higher in the northern fish and that northern fish had a superior capacity for reproduction within a season. These results support the prediction that latitudinal compensation occurs in the female reproductive rate of P. coelestis. As the reproductive season of this species decreases drastically with increasing latitude, the observed cline in the reproductive rate must be an adaptive response to the local selective regime, i.e., length of the reproductive season. Such latitudinal compensation in female reproductive rates may be a common pattern in latitudinally widespread fishes.
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U2 - 10.1007/s10641-003-0304-z
DO - 10.1007/s10641-003-0304-z
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:12444331060
VL - 71
SP - 213
EP - 224
JO - Environmental Biology of Fishes
JF - Environmental Biology of Fishes
SN - 0378-1909
IS - 3
ER -