A field based study of swimbladder adjustment in a physostomous teleost fish

School of Biology, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki, Greece
Department of Marine resources, Instituto Portugues do Mar e Atmosfera, Lisbon, Portugal
DOI
10.7287/peerj.preprints.764v1
Subject Areas
Aquaculture, Fisheries and Fish Science, Marine Biology, Zoology
Keywords
Atlantic sardine, shape descriptors, bathymetric distribution, swimbladder, fish biology
Copyright
© 2014 Ganias et al.
Licence
This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, reproduction and adaptation in any medium and for any purpose provided that it is properly attributed. For attribution, the original author(s), title, publication source (PeerJ PrePrints) and either DOI or URL of the article must be cited.
Cite this article
Ganias K, Nunes C. 2014. A field based study of swimbladder adjustment in a physostomous teleost fish. PeerJ PrePrints 2:e764v1

Abstract

The present study assesses swimbladder dynamics in natural occurring sardine, Sardina pilchardus, populations with the aim to examine whether this is affected by bathymetric positioning and the physiological state of the individuals. To do so swimbladder size and shape were modeled in relation to catch depth and the size of various visceral compartments such as gonad, liver, fat and stomach. Swimbladder size was shown to be related to depth in a way that individuals with smaller swimbladders occurred at larger depths. Moreover, evidence is provided that swimbladder in sardine might have a functional relationship both with the reproductive and the feeding state of individuals since none of the fish with hydrated gonads and/or large stomachs displayed distended swimbladders.

Author Comment

This is a submission to PeerJ for review.