Stress takes the fun out of Fundulus: Metabolic and Developmental Tradeoffs to Stress Tolerance in Atlantic Killifish

Fundulus heteroclitus, or Atlantic Killifish, are an exceptional model of adaptive tolerances, as they can tolerate an extremely wide variety of temperatures, salinities and contamination levels. While this tolerance is remarkable, it may come at an energetic cost. I investigated the metabolic and developmental tradeoffs to PCB and PAH tolerance across different temperatures. Examining the oxygen consumption and growth rate of both pollution tolerant and sensitive populations of Atlantic killifish at embryonic and larval life stages under different thermal conditions allowed me to determine the metabolic and developmental trade-offs to compounding environmental stressors. While no significant effects of temperature or pollution tolerance were found on oxygen consumption in embryonic Atlantic Killifish, I found that pollution sensitive fish had a metabolic response to increased temperatures that did not exist in pollution tolerant fish. These differences indicate that an adaptive tradeoff to pollution tolerance exists, which may become more pronounced in the face of climate change.