Thermal resilience of Hallobatrachus didactylus

MOLINA J. M.; PEDRO GUERREIRO; ANDREAS KUNZMANN

Conferencia; ZMT Annual Conference (ZAC4); 2023

In a context of climate change, warming of the seas challenges most species of fish to adapt. Understanding how different species cope with these changes in their environments at individual level can shed light on how populations and ecosystems will be affected. Utilizing a set of respirometry and experimental designs, we studied the thermal -related limits for Halobatrachus didactylus, a coastal sedentary fish that lives in intertidal environments of north-east Atlantic. This species proved to be highly resistant to thermal stress ( CTmax: 34.82 +/- 0.66 ºC) and presented size-specific differences in its stress response to increasing water temperatures, with smaller individuals being more sensitive. The metrics obtained in this study prove H. didactylus is surprisingly resilient to acute environmental variations in temperature.