fish larvae

Climate change will reduce the salinity in the Baltic Sea to levels that marine fish species may not be able to tolerate. We acutely exposed Atlantic herring larvae from different Baltic Sea populations to low salinities, and modelled the survival threshold now, and for salinity projections at the end of the 21st century. Climate-driven freshening will make some Baltic habitats unsuitable for larvae.

We exposed Atlantic herring larvae to different microplankton to simulate the plankton phenology in spring, and measured growth, condition, digestive enzyme and feeding activity, and survival. Microplankton promoted external feeding on larger prey but was insufficient to alter life span and growth.

Knowledge on larval swimming capabilities is required as baseline information to create computational models of flatfish transport, foraging and growth. In this study, we measured critical swimming speeds of European plaice, and found that inter-individual differences in swimming performance were unrelated to body condition.