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Divergent compensatory growth responses within species: linked to contrasting migrations in salmon?

  • Population Ecology
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Abstract

Animals often exhibit accelerated or “compensatory” growth (CG) after periods of environmentally induced growth depression, raising important questions about how they cope with environmental variability. We tested an underexplored hypothesis regarding the evolutionary consequences of CG; namely, that natural populations differ in CG responses. Common-garden experiments were used to compare subadult growth following food restriction between groups (control, treatment) of two Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar) populations and their first-generation (F1) hybrids. The populations are found at similar latitudes but characterized by differences in migration distance. We predicted that long-distance migrants would better maintain growth trajectories following food restriction than short-distance migrants because they: (1) require larger body sizes to offset energetic costs of migration and (2) face greater time constraints for growth as they must leave non-breeding areas earlier to return to breeding areas. Long-distance migrants grew faster, achieved quicker CG (relative to controls), and their overall body morphology was more streamlined (a trait known to improve swimming efficiency) than slower growing short-distance migrants. F1 hybrids were generally intermediate in “normal” growth, CG, and body morphology. We concluded that CG responses may differ considerably among populations and that the conditions generating them are likely interconnected with selection on a suite of other traits.

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Acknowledgments

We are grateful to workers at DFO’s Coldbrook Biodiversity Facility for providing the salmon gametes used in this study. We also thank workers at Dalhousie University’s Aquatron Facility for assistance during the experimental component of our study. Comments from A. Laurila, C. Purchase, D. Ruzzante and two anonymous reviewers greatly improved the quality of the paper. This work was funded by a Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) Discovery Grant to JAH, a NSERC postdoctoral scholarship to DJF, and le Fonds Québécois de la Recherche sur la Nature et les Technologies and Canada Scholar NSERC scholarships to LKW. Experiments undertaken in this study comply with the requirements of the Canadian Council on Animal Care (CCAC).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biology, Dalhousie University, Halifax, NS, Canada, B3H 4J1

    Dylan J. Fraser, Laura K. Weir, Tamara L. Darwish & Jeffrey A. Hutchings

  2. Aquatron Laboratory, Dalhousie University, Halifax, NS, Canada, B3H 4H6

    James D. Eddington

Authors
  1. Dylan J. Fraser
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  2. Laura K. Weir
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  3. Tamara L. Darwish
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  4. James D. Eddington
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  5. Jeffrey A. Hutchings
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Dylan J. Fraser.

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Communicated by Anssi Laurila.

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Fraser, D.J., Weir, L.K., Darwish, T.L. et al. Divergent compensatory growth responses within species: linked to contrasting migrations in salmon?. Oecologia 153, 543–553 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00442-007-0763-6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00442-007-0763-6

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