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The entrainment and gating of the endogenous circannual rhythm of reproduction in the female rainbow trout (Salmo gairdneri)

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Summary

The endogenous circannual rhythm of maturation in the female rainbow trout and associated changes in serum oestradiol-17β and vitellogenin (as calcium) can be entrained by abrupt changes in the photoperiod. Groups of virgin fish (which naturally spawn in December) maintained under LD 18∶6 from mid-January (Year 1), and then subjected to a reduction to LD 6∶18 either on 1st March (Group A), 1st April (Group B), 1st May (Group C) or 1st June (Group D), commenced spawning on 31st July, 13th and 30th August, and the 16th September, respectively. Fish maintained on LD 18∶6 throughout the experiment (Group E) commenced spawning on 10th October. These advances in the timing of spawning can be described in the form of a phase-response curve analogous to the entrainment behaviour of circadian oscillators. It is concluded that under natural conditions the annual change in photoperiod serves to continuously entrain the circannual clock thus ensuring that maturation and spawning occur at the optimal season for the survival of the species.

In Groups A, B, C and D, respectively, 74%, 48%, 23% and 8% of the fish failed to mature in Year 1. Maintaining a sample of both maturing and non-maturing trout under constant LD 6∶18 for a further year resulted in all the fish spawning in August of Year 2, approximately one year after the spawning members of this group matured in Year 1. It is proposed that the reduction from LD 18∶6 to LD 6∶18 phase-advanced a circannual timing mechanism in all the fish which then ‘free-ran’; this advance was only overtly expressed by the earlier spawning of a certain percentage of the fish in Year 1, but in all the fish in Year 2. These results indicate that the internal timing mechanism can be dissociated from the neuroendocrine mechanisms controlling maturation and thus it can be considered as an autonomous circannual clock. The relationship between the timing of the reduction in photoperiod and the percentage of virgin fish attaining maturation can be explained by a gating model. It is hypothesized that the energetically demanding process of gonadal maturation is only allowed in virgin fish which have reached a certain threshold stage of development and when the clock is at a specific (‘gate open’) phase of the circannual cycle.

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  1. James Duston

    Present address: Biological Station, EOG 2XO, St. Andrews, New Brunswick, Canada

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  1. Institute of Aquaculture, University of Stirling, FK9 4LA, Stirling, Scotland

    James Duston & Niall Bromage

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  2. Niall Bromage
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Duston, J., Bromage, N. The entrainment and gating of the endogenous circannual rhythm of reproduction in the female rainbow trout (Salmo gairdneri). J. Comp. Physiol. 164, 259–268 (1988). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00603956

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