The consequences of diet limitation in juvenile threespine stickleback: growth,lipid storage and the phenomenon of compensatory growth |
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| Authors: | Miguel L Reyes John A Baker |
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| Institution: | Department of Biology, Clark University, Worcester, MA, USA |
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| Abstract: | Many organisms exhibit compensatory growth (CG), an accelerated growth rate during recovery from periods of low nutrient resources. Despite numerous studies, many aspects of CG, particularly fine‐scale temporal effects early in life, remain poorly understood. We manipulated early‐life feeding regimens in threespine stickleback (Gasterosteus aculeatus) to study compensatory responses in growth rate and lipid storage during the first growing season. Laboratory‐reared stickleback, including ancestral oceanic and derived freshwater populations, were divided into three age‐specific dietary treatment groups – DPR1, DPR2 and DPR3 – which were exposed to a half‐ration nutrient deprivation for 30 days at the onset of 2, 3 and 4 months of age, respectively. We hypothesised that these month‐long periods of nutrient deprivation would result in strong, yet variable CG responses across stickleback populations and dietary treatments following a return to optimal ration levels. The youngest two age classes of fish (DPR1 &and DPR2) exhibited strong CG responses, matching growth rates and lipid generation levels seen in control fish fed an ad libitum diet. The oldest nutrient‐deprived group (DPR3) showed a reduced CG response, with body growth recovering only partially, and lipid levels exhibiting even less recovery. Our results demonstrate that compensatory growth responses in juvenile stickleback depend on the timing of deprivation during the first growing season and further that responses to late‐season deprivation have favoured development of a larger body frame entering the overwintering season over lipid regeneration. |
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| Keywords: | catch‐up growth diet fluctuation energy storage levels
Gasterosteus aculeatus
trade‐off |
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