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Simultaneous biologging of heart rate and acceleration, and their relationships with energy expenditure in free-swimming sockeye salmon (Oncorhynchus nerka)

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Abstract

Monitoring the physiological status and behaviour of free-swimming fishes remains a challenging task, although great promise stems from techniques such as biologging and biotelemetry. Here, implanted data loggers were used to simultaneously measure heart rate (f H), visceral temperature, and a derivation of acceleration in two groups of wild adult sockeye salmon (Oncorhynchus nerka) held at two different water speeds (slow and fast). Calibration experiments performed with individual fish in a swim tunnel respirometer generated strong relationships between acceleration, f H, tail beat frequency and energy expenditure over a wide range of swimming velocities. The regression equations were then used to estimate the overall energy expenditure of the groups of fish held at different water speeds. As expected, fish held at faster water speeds exhibited greater f H and acceleration, and correspondingly a higher estimated energy expenditure than fish held at slower water speeds. These estimates were consistent with gross somatic energy density of fish at death, as determined using proximate analyses of a dorsal tissue sample. Heart rate alone and in combination with acceleration, rather than acceleration alone, provided the most accurate proxies for energy expenditure in these studies. Even so, acceleration provided useful information on the behaviour of fish and may itself prove to be a valuable proxy for energy expenditure under different environmental conditions, using a different derivation of the acceleration data, and/or with further calibration experiments. These results strengthen the possibility that biologging or biotelemetry of f H and acceleration may be usefully applied to migrating sockeye salmon to monitor physiology and behaviour, and to estimate energy use in the natural environment.

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Acknowledgments

The authors thank Andrew Lotto and Kenneth Jeffries for technical assistance with field equipment; Larry Kahl, Don Johnson, and all other staff at the Chehalis River Hatchery; the Chehalis First Nation band for allowing access to their land and for providing field assistance through their Fisheries Council; Lewis Halsey and Adrian Gleiss for constructive discussions relating to this article; and the staff of the Environmental Watch Program and the West Vancouver Center for Aquaculture and Environmental Research, including Jayme Hills, Vanessa Ives, Jessica Carter, D’Arcy McKay, Miki Nomura and Virgile Baudry. This research was conducted with the approval of the Animal Ethics Committee of the University of British Columbia (UBC), in accordance with the Canadian Council on Animal Care. This work was funded by grants to A.P. Farrell and S.G. Hinch from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada. T.D. Clark was supported by a UBC Killam Postdoctoral Fellowship.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Land and Food Systems, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, V6T 1Z4, Canada

    Timothy Darren Clark, E. Sandblom & A. P. Farrell

  2. Department of Forest Sciences, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, V6T 1Z4, Canada

    S. G. Hinch

  3. Fisheries and Oceans Canada, Science Branch, Pacific Region, Co-operative Resource Management Institute, School of Resource and Environmental Management, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, V5A 1S6, Canada

    D. A. Patterson

  4. School of Zoology, University of Tasmania, Hobart, TAS, 7001, Australia

    P. B. Frappell

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  1. Timothy Darren Clark
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  2. E. Sandblom
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  3. S. G. Hinch
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  4. D. A. Patterson
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  5. P. B. Frappell
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Correspondence to Timothy Darren Clark.

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Communicated by I. D. Hume.

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Clark, T.D., Sandblom, E., Hinch, S.G. et al. Simultaneous biologging of heart rate and acceleration, and their relationships with energy expenditure in free-swimming sockeye salmon (Oncorhynchus nerka). J Comp Physiol B 180, 673–684 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00360-009-0442-5

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