Lecture by Prof. Daniel Pauly at the second Thienmann lecture at the IGB

Fish biology , Fisheries Ecology

We want to invite you to the second Thienmann Lecture at IGB, which will be held  June, 20, at 1 pm in the lecture hall of IGB, Müggelseedamm 310, 12597 Berlin (www.igb-berlin.de).

 

 

Our distinguished speaker will be Prof. Daniel Pauly from the University of British Columbia, Canada. Daniel Pauly is the most highly cited fish and fisheries researcher on the globe. He is probably best known for his contributions to the global fisheries crisis (e.g., "fishing down the food web"), the development of the trophic mass balance ecosystem model "Ecopath" and the global fish information database www.fishbase.org. Daniel Pauly is the recipient of numerous awards, including the Volvo Environmental Prize. He has published over 1000 papers and has been cited more than 80.000 times (this is not a typo). You find more information on Daniel Pauly's impressive accomplishments following these links: https://scholar.google.ca/citations?user=b6s1NfkAAAAJ&hl=en and http://oceans.ubc.ca/daniel-pauly/

 

The seminar is entitled "Fish must breathe: How temperature and dissolved oxygen shape their biology.” 

 

Abstract. One of the expected responses of marine fishes to ocean warming is decrease in body size, as supported by evidence from empirical data and theoretical modelling. The theoretical underpinning for fish shrinking is that the oxygen supply to large fish size cannot be met by their gills, whose surface area cannot keep up with the oxygen demand by their three-dimensional bodies. Although this logic has been recently challenged, it will be shown, in the context of Gill-Oxygen Limitation Theory (GOLT) that gills, because they must retain the properties of open surfaces, cannot avoid being limiting for fish growth. Also, besides explaining (1) the growth patterns of fish, a wide range of biological features of fish and other water-breathing organisms can be understood only when gill area limitation is used as an explanation, including (2) the decline of food conversion efficiency with size; (3) the size at which they reproduce; (4) the phenomenon known as ‘abortive maturation’; (5) why the fish of a given species are larger at the cold end of their distribution ranges; (6) why fish move into deeper/colder waters when they grow bigger; (7) why the growth and food conversion efficiency of farmed fish declines when oxygen supply is reduced; (8) why fish perform temperature-driven seasonal migrations (9) why global warming induces poleward migrations; (10) why the flesh of tuna that have fought for a long time at the end of a fishing line becomes inedible; (11) why the otoliths of fish and the statoliths of invertebrates form clear daily rings in larvae and juveniles, but  in adults; (12) many other phenomena that are never ben elucidated before, or even perceived as requiring an explanation. The GOLT thus appears to have the potential of a powerful theory capable of acceleration progress in marine biology and limnology and the corresponding applied discipline, i.e., fishery science and aquaculture.


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