Grant: Discovery Grants Program - Individual

Fish mortalities often occur when environmental conditions are unfavourable and prevent fish from adapting, giving them little choice but to seek more favourable conditions or perish. Understanding and predicting how fish respond to environmental conditions is thus more important than ever, particularly in the context of climate change. Much of these environmental conditions affect an individual's physiology and behaviour, which in turn have repercussions at the population level. However, in most cases, eco-physiological information on the species of interest is lacking and needs to be developed. The physiological response of individuals can be described through the development of bioenergetics models, which balance the energy requirements for growth and reproduction with the energy that is gathered through consumption. Bioenergetics models are also regulated by the size of the organism and the environmental conditions, such as temperature, that are encountered. My research program integrates organismal physiological responses to inform current and future energy requirements of fishes under dynamic environmental conditions in order to understand the energetic needs of a population. I propose to use a unique combination of laboratory, field, and modelling experiments to develop parameters that will be used in the development of ecologically-, biogically-, and physiologically-relevant simulations of fish growth under dynamic or altered environments. This work will provide powerful insight into the significant impacts fish can have on their environment, and how the environment conditions can shape energetic responses at the population level.