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Post-spawning growth acceleration in fish as a result of reduced live weight and thus, increased food conversion efficiency

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Abstract

The conventional view of spawning in iteroparous bony fish, i.e., the “reproductive drain hypothesis,” is based on the observation that somatic growth (in length) slows down noticeably at approximately the time fish attain maturity, and hence the assumption is made that investment in gonadal development slows down growth. However, when this is translated as growth in weight, the weight at first maturity (or puberty) is usually smaller than the weight at which growth rate is highest, i.e., weight growth accelerates after first maturity. We solve this conundrum, with some emphasis on female cod (Gadus morhua), by proposing the hypothesis that the substantial loss of body mass experienced by fish as a result of spawning is quickly compensated for by increased somatic growth after the spawning period, notably because of the increase in food conversion efficiency resulting from a sudden loss of body weight, which necessarily leads to a large increase in relative oxygen supply via the gills. This is consistent with the argument developed elsewhere that declining relative oxygen supply by the gills, whose surface area cannot keep up with increasing body weight, is the reason for growth rate declining with weight in adult fish.

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Acknowledgements

We thank Ian Fleming, Memorial University of Newfoundland, for valuable information and for providing the photos used for Fig. 2, as taken by Kristin Bøe. We also thank Elaine Chu for drafting Figs. 1 and 3–4.

Funding

The data presented in Fig. 1 were provided by a project of the German Federal Agency for Nature Conservation (Bundesamt für Naturschutz, BfN), which provided RF funds from the Federal Ministry of the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety (BMU; grant agreement FKZ: 3521532201).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Sea Around Us, Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries, University of British Columbia, B.C, Vancouver, V6T 1Z4, Canada

    Daniel Pauly

  2. Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research, GEOMAR, Düsternbrooker Weg 20, 24105, Kiel, Germany

    Rainer Froese

  3. CAS Key Laboratory of Marine Ecology and Environmental Sciences, Institute of Oceanology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Qingdao, 266071, People’s Republic of China

    Cui Liang

  4. Laboratory for Marine Ecology and Environmental Science, Qingdao National Laboratory for Marine Science and Technology, Qingdao, 266237, People’s Republic of China

    Cui Liang

  5. Leiden University Centre for the Arts in Society, Arsenaalstraat 1, 2311, VL, Leiden, The Netherlands

    Johannes Müller

  6. Department of Fisheries, Wildlife and Conservation Biology, University of Minnesota, St. Paul, MN, 55108, USA

    Peter Sorensen

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  1. Daniel Pauly
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Contributions

Idea generation: DP, JM, RF, and PS; cases studies: DP, RF, JM, CJ, and PS; data analyses: DP and RF; first draft of manuscript: DP; editing of final manuscript: DP, RF, JM,CJ, and PS.

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Correspondence to Daniel Pauly.

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Pauly, D., Froese, R., Liang, C. et al. Post-spawning growth acceleration in fish as a result of reduced live weight and thus, increased food conversion efficiency. Environ Biol Fish 106, 2031–2043 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10641-023-01482-2

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