Protecting Human Food Security and Biodiversity: Can Fish Energetics Help to Predict the Impacts of Climate Change on Inland Fisheries?

Inland fisheries represent an important source of protein and income for many communities, particularly in the tropics.  It has been shown that ectotherms living in climatically stable tropical environments tend to be thermal specialists, and that some of them achieve their optimal metabolic performance at temperatures near their upper tolerance limits. Consequently, tropical freshwater fishes may be exceptionally sensitive to even small changes in temperature anticipated from global climate change. Despite that threat, the thermal biology of tropical freshwater fishes has received little attention. This project aims to assess whether the thermal sensitivity of fish metabolism and energetics can be used to forecast the vulnerability of key tropical freshwater fishes to climate change. Experiments are conducted at three locations (Brazil, Uganda, and Cambodia), where we quantify the metabolic capacities of two species acclimated for 3 weeks to three water temperature treatments (ambient, ambient + 2°C, and ambient + 4°C). The project addresses a time sensitive conservation problem, with a goal to contribute to the protection of culturally and socio-economically important fish species in the tropics.