Effect of Body Size and Temperature on Oxygen Consumption of Salvelinus fontinalis

• Tyler Baer

  Juniata College

  Author

• Zachary St.Clair

  Juniata College

  Author

Climate change continues to have negative effects on all organisms. This is specifically true for ectotherms, which rely on the external environment to maintain homeostasis. It has been reported that fish metabolic rate is negatively correlated with body size and positively correlated with water temperature. This study was conducted by analyzing data on Salvelinus fontinalis from Fishbase. S. fontinalis are the only trout native to the eastern United States and are a useful indicator for water quality and overall ecosystem health. The data consisted of 150 samples from different studies and reported oxygen consumption (mg/kg/h) at temperatures varying from 5 to 20 °C. Correlation analysis of our data is consistent with previous studies. Our data suggested a moderate positive correlation between temperature and oxygen consumption with a Pearson correlation coefficient of 0.746. Our data also suggested a negative correlation between body size and oxygen consumption with a Pearson correlation coefficient of -0.322. Although our findings are consistent with previous studies, it would be beneficial to have a larger sample size for future experiments as well as examining the effects of different activity levels on oxygen consumption.

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