Brown trout (Salmo trutta) originating from warmer streams in Iceland exhibit increased energetic efficiency

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dc.contributor.authorO’Gorman, Eoin J.
dc.contributor.authorGonzález-Ferreras, Alexia M.
dc.contributor.authorBlyth, Penelope S. A.
dc.contributor.authorCoughlan, Jamie
dc.contributor.authorHawksley, Jack
dc.contributor.authorMcGinnity, Phil
dc.contributor.authorPhillips, Karl P.
dc.contributor.authorReed, Thomas E.
dc.contributor.funderGísli Már Gíslason
dc.contributor.funderESF +
dc.contributor.funderESF +
dc.contributor.funderEuropean Research Council, ERC
dc.contributor.funderNatural Environment Research Council, NERC, NE/L011840/1-NE/M020843/1
dc.contributor.funderImperial College London, ICL, RYC2023-045780-I-MICIU/AEI/10.13039/501100011033
dc.contributor.funderERC, 639192
dc.contributor.funderScience Foundation Ireland, SFI, SFI/15/IA/3028
dc.contributor.funderRoyal Society, RG140601
dc.date.accessioned2026-09-09T14:37:01Z
dc.date.available2026-09-09T14:37:01Z
dc.date.issued2026-03-31
dc.description.abstractMetabolic rate determines the amount of energy an organism needs to survive, and it is typically predicted to increase with warming up to an optimum temperature for ectothermic organisms. Once their metabolic demands have been met, organisms can use the excess energy from feeding for enhanced growth and reproduction. Experimental evidence suggests that metabolic rate may increase more with warming than energy intake, which could lead to energetic inefficiency and population decline. Downregulating metabolic rates or enhancing feeding rates after chronic exposure to warmer environments could help overcome this problem, but populations and individuals may vary in their capacity for such change. Here, we experimentally measured the temperature-dependent metabolic and feeding rates of brown trout (Salmo trutta) originating from one cold and two warm streams in the same geothermally heated catchment, and examined their population genetic structure. We found a consistent increase in metabolic rate with temperature for all fish, but a stronger increase in feeding rate with temperature for those originating from warm streams. This resulted in the latter exhibiting a greater energetic efficiency with increasing temperature than the fish originating from the cold stream. We detected significant genetic differentiation at neutral markers between the cold and warm streams, implying limited gene flow across the thermal or geographic gradient, and thus scope for adaptive divergence. Collectively our results point towards important variation in eco-physiology within a single catchment that has implications for population persistence in the face of warming. These results highlight the importance of considering intraspecific variation in predictive models of biological responses to climate change. They moreover emphasise how energy intake versus expenditure can be differentially thermally sensitive even at fine spatial scales.en
dc.description.sponsorshipNatural Environment Research Council|NE/M020843/1|NE/L011840/1 Imperial College London|MICIU/AEI/10.13039/501100011033|RYC2023-045780-I Science Foundation Ireland|SFI/15/IA/3028 Royal Society|RG140601
dc.description.versionPublished Version
dc.format.extent12
dc.format.mimetypeapplication/pdfen
dc.identifier.articleid710
dc.identifier.authororcidO’Gorman, Eoin J.
dc.identifier.authororcidGonzález-Ferreras, Alexia M.
dc.identifier.authororcidBlyth, Penelope S. A.
dc.identifier.authororcidCoughlan, Jamie
dc.identifier.authororcidHawksley, Jack
dc.identifier.authororcidMcGinnity, Phil§0000-0001-5199-5632
dc.identifier.authororcidPhillips, Karl P.
dc.identifier.authororcidReed, Thomas E.§0000-0002-2993-0477
dc.identifier.citationO’Gorman, E J, González-Ferreras, A M, Blyth, P S A, Coughlan, J, Hawksley, J, McGinnity, P, Phillips, K P & Reed, T E 2026, 'Brown trout (Salmo trutta) originating from warmer streams in Iceland exhibit increased energetic efficiency', Communications Biology, vol. 9, no. 1, 710, pp. 1-12. https://doi.org/10.1038/s42003-026-09911-5
dc.identifier.doi10.1038/s42003-026-09911-5
dc.identifier.endpage12
dc.identifier.issn2399-3642
dc.identifier.issued1
dc.identifier.journaltitleCommunications Biology
dc.identifier.otherORCID: /0000-0002-2993-0477/work/210335743
dc.identifier.startpage1
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/10468/19222
dc.identifier.volume9
dc.language.isoen
dc.publisherNature Research
dc.relation.urihttps://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/105040200034
dc.rights© 2026, the Author(s). This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
dc.rights.accessrightsopen access
dc.rights.licensenameAttribution 4.0 International
dc.rights.urihttps://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
dc.statusPeer reviewed
dc.subjectBrown trout
dc.subjectSalmo trutta
dc.subjectEctothermic organisms
dc.subject[BEES]
dc.titleBrown trout (Salmo trutta) originating from warmer streams in Iceland exhibit increased energetic efficiencyen
dc.typeArticle (peer-reviewed)
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