With Stone Lab’s mesocosm facility, their team studied how higher temperatures, more turbidity and less oxygen could affect the growth and health of smallmouth bass. Ohio Sea Grant researchers Suzanne Gray and Lauren Pintor are looking at how one of Lake Erie’s key fish will be affected by a changing climate. “So the fish have this sort of trade-off of needing more food and needing to be more active because of the higher temperatures but then also needing more oxygen for those metabolic processes when there’s less oxygen available,” said Suzanne Gray, associate director of academic programming and research at The Ohio State University’s Stone Laboratory and associate professor of aquatic physiological ecology at College of Food, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences School of Environment and Natural Resources. Under hypoxic - or low oxygen - conditions, fish have trouble maintaining basic bodily functions and may decrease activity. Temperature also has a direct relationship with the oxygen in the water: As the temperature goes up, dissolved oxygen levels go down. As water heats up, fish metabolism increases, causing fish to work faster and use up more energy. Fish are ectotherms, meaning that their body temperature is dictated by the water they live in. Others might not even notice a difference.īut for fish living in Lake Erie, such a temperature increase in water could spell disaster. Some people might peel off a layer of clothing. For humans, if the temperature rises by a few degrees, the immediate impact is minimal.
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