Impact of ocean warming on a coral reef fish learning and memory

PeerJ

article

Mayara M. Silveira¹  Jennifer M. Donelson²  Mark I. McCormick³  Heloysa Araujo-Silva¹  Ana C. Luchiari¹ 

[1] Department of Physiology and Behavior, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Norte;ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies, James Cook University of North Queensland;School of Science, University of Waikato

关键词: Temperature;    Stress;    Behavior;    Cognition;    Damselfish;    Climate change;   

DOI  :  10.7717/peerj.15729

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: Inra

【 摘 要 】

Tropical ectotherms are highly sensitive to environmental warming, especially coral reef fishes, which are negatively impacted by an increase of a few degrees in ocean temperature. However, much of our understanding on the thermal sensitivity of reef fish is focused on a few traits (e.g., metabolism, reproduction) and we currently lack knowledge on warming effects on cognition, which may endanger decision-making and survival. Here, we investigated the effects of warming on learning and memory in a damselfish species, Acanthochromis polyacanthus. Fish were held at 28–28.5 °C (control group), 30–30.5 °C (moderate warming group) or 31.5–32 °C (high warming group) for 2 weeks, and then trained to associate a blue tag (cue) to the presence of a conspecific (reward). Following 20 training trials (5 days), fish were tested for associative learning (on the following day) and memory storage (after a 5-days interval). The control group A. polyacanthus showed learning of the task and memory retention after five days, but increasing water temperature impaired learning and memory. A thorough understanding of the effects of heat stress, cognition, and fitness is urgently required because cognition may be a key factor determining animals’ performance in the predicted scenario of climate changes. Knowing how different species respond to warming can lead to better predictions of future community dynamics, and because it is species specific, it could pinpoint vulnerable/resilience species.

【 授权许可】

CC BY