Developmental temperature has persistent, sexually dimorphic effects on zebrafish cardiac anatomy

Anastasia Dimitriadi,George Koumoundouros,Christos Arvanitidis,Dimitris Beis,Dominique Adriaens

doi:10.1038/s41598-018-25991-8

Abstract

Over the next century, climate change of anthropogenic origin is a major threat to global biodiversity. We show here that developmental temperature can have significant effects on zebrafish cardiac anatomy and swimming performance. Zebrafish embryos were subjected to three developmental temperature treatments (TD = 24, 28 or 32 °C) up to metamorphosis and then all maintained under common conditions (28 °C) to adulthood. We found that developmental temperature affected cardiac anatomy of juveniles and adults even eight months after the different thermal treatments had been applied. The elevation of TD induced a significant increase of the ventricle roundness in juvenile (10% increase) and male (22% increase), but not in female zebrafish. The aerobic exercise performance of adult zebrafish was significantly decreased as TD elevated from 24 to 32 °C. Gene expression analysis that was performed at the end of the temperature treatments revealed significant up-regulation of nppa, myh7 and mybpc3 genes at the colder temperature. Our work provides the first evidence for a direct link between developmental temperature and cardiac form at later life-stages. Our results also add to the emerging rationale for understanding the potential effects of global warming on how fish will perform in their natural environment.

Highlights

Climate change poses a great threat to global biodiversity, affecting the physiology of species[1] and the distribution of populations[2]
We found that developmental temperature has striking but variable effects on zebrafish cardiac anatomy and swimming performance, even several months after the end of fish exposure to the different thermal regimes
Ventricular volume and bulbus arteriosus length were standardized to SL (VeV/SL and bulbus-arteriosus length (BaL)/SL)

Summary

Introduction

Climate change poses a great threat to global biodiversity, affecting the physiology of species[1] and the distribution of populations[2]. It is of crucial importance to better understand the physiological and molecular mechanisms underlying the responses of organisms to fluctuating environments[3,4,5]. Despite the intensifying interest on temperature as a major abiotic factor determining species distribution[7,8], there is relatively little knowledge concerning the mechanisms underlying thermal plasticity during development and how they influence the success and fitness of different species[9]. We found that developmental temperature has striking but variable effects on zebrafish cardiac anatomy and swimming performance, even several months after the end of fish exposure to the different thermal regimes

Methods

Results

Conclusion