Premium
Swimming and Recovery Abilities of Juvenile Chinese Sturgeon Acipenser sinensis
Author(s) -
Fang Min,
Cai Lu,
Gao Yong,
He Da,
Johnson David,
Huang Yingping
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
transactions of the american fisheries society
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.696
H-Index - 86
eISSN - 1548-8659
pISSN - 0002-8487
DOI - 10.1080/00028487.2017.1362469
Subject(s) - respirometer , juvenile , sturgeon , flume , zoology , biology , fishery , fish <actinopterygii> , ecology , anatomy , mathematics , respiration , flow (mathematics) , geometry
Breeding populations of the Chinese Sturgeon Acipenser sinensis are endemic to the Yangtze River in China, but other wild populations have been extirpated, and the species is critically endangered. The swimming performance of juvenile Chinese Sturgeon was tested in a flume‐type respirometer using a three‐phase test: a constant velocity endurance test, followed by a 30‐min recovery period, and then a stepped velocity test to determine the critical swimming speed ( U crit ). Swimming endurance (at 19 ± 1°C) was tested at five constant speeds: 3.0, 3.5, 4.0, 4.5, and 5.0 body lengths per second (BL/s) (groups 1–5). A control group (group 0) was used to determine U crit for fish that had not been subjected to the endurance test. The U crit of the control group ( U′ ) was 4.32 ± 0.30 BL/s (mean ± SE) and after fish had completed the endurance test the U crit ranged from 2.88 ± 0.15 BL/s in group 1 to 3.64 ± 0.28 BL/s in group 5, with corresponding recovery ratios ( U crit / U′ ) of 66.7 ± 3.4% and 84.3 ± 6.4%. Endurance time decreases with swimming speed, so these results indicate that fatigue resulting from swimming at low speed for a longer time requires more recovery time than does fatigue resulting from swimming at high speed for a shorter time. The relationship between swimming speed ( U ; BL/s) and endurance time ( t e ; min) is described by log t e = 3.90 – 0.64 U ( r 2 = 0.769, P < 0.05).