Partitioning of oxygen uptake and cost of surfacing during swimming in the air-breathing catfish Pangasianodon hypophthalmus

Abstract

Though air-breathing has probably evolved mainly as a response to hypoxia, it may provide an important oxygen supplement when metabolism is elevated, as for example during swimming. Due to the increased travelling distance involved when an air-breathing fish swims to and from the surface, and the increased drag when the surface is breached, it can be proposed that air-breathing results in a rise in the apparent cost of transport. In order to investigate this hypothesis, it is necessary to use a fish that is able to swim equally well with and without access to air. The striped catfish Pangasianodon hypophthalmus has been shown to have a sufficiently high capacity for aquatic oxygen uptake in normoxia, to allow for such a comparison. Here, we measured the partitioning of oxygen uptake ($\dot{M}{\text{O}}_{2}$) during swimming and recovery, and calculated the apparent cost of transport with and without access to air, under normoxic conditions. Aerial $\dot{M}{\text{O}}_{2}$ constituted 25–40 % of the total $\dot{M}{\text{O}}_{2}$ during swimming and less than 15 % during recovery. The net cost of transport was 25 % lower in fish that did not air-breathe compared to fish that did, showing that the cost of surfacing can be substantial. This is the first study to measure partitioning in an air-breathing fish during swimming at velocities close to the critical swimming speed.