Size dependent early salinity tolerance in two sizes of juvenile white sturgeon, Acipenser transmontanus

Abstract

The objective of this study was to investigate the influence of size on salinity tolerance in 1 year old juvenile white sturgeon. Two sizes of sturgeon (10 and 30 g) from the same spawning event (thus reducing confounding effects of genetic make-up and size) and reared in the same environment were exposed to a salinity of 0, 8, 16, 24, or 32 ppt for up to 120 h. Both 10 and 30 g fish exhibited > 93% mortality within 24 h after transfer to 24 or 32 ppt, regardless of whether they were transferred directly from freshwater (FW) or following a 48 h pre-treatment period at 16 ppt. Direct transfer from FW to 16 ppt was associated with 25 to 30% mortality, indicating that these fish have some ability to tolerate large changes in salinity for up to 5 days at this stage. Following exposure to 8 and 16 ppt, an elevation in plasma osmolarity, [Na+], and [Cl−] was observed between 24 and 72 h in both 10 and 30 g sturgeon, but plasma ions and osmolarity in surviving fish at 120 h were not significantly different between groups held at 0, 8, and 16 ppt. Despite being unprepared for either direct or stepwise transfer to salinities of 24 ppt or greater, size confers some ionoregulatory advantage, as mortality occurred more slowly and the degree of ionoregulatory perturbation was less in 30 g than 10 g fish over the course of the exposures. It is not known whether the apparent advantage of size is related to a size-dependent development of ionoregulatory capacity or due to social status which can also influence ionoregulatory capacity, but age and genetic differences did not likely contribute to this size effect.