ABSTRACT: The deep sea (>500 m ocean depth) is the largest global habitat, characterized by cool temperatures, low ambient light, and food-poor conditions relative to shallower waters. Deep-sea teleosts generally grow more slowly than those inhabiting shallow water. However, this is a generalization, and even amongst deep-sea teleosts, there is a broad continuum of growth rates. The importance of potential drivers of growth rate variability amongst deep-sea species, such as temperature, food availability, oxygen concentration, metabolic rate, and phylogeny, have yet to be fully evaluated. We present a meta-analysis in which age and size data were collected for 53 species of teleosts whose collective depth ranges span from surface waters to 4000 m. We calculated growth metrics using both calendar and thermal age, and compared them with environmental, ecological, and phylogenetic variables. Temperature alone explained up to 30% of variation in the von Bertalanffy growth coefficient (K, yr^-1), and 21% of the variation in the average annual increase in mass (AIM, %), a metric of growth prior to maturity. After correcting for temperature effects, depth was still a significant driver of growth, explaining up to 20 and 10% of the remaining variation in K and AIM, respectively. Oxygen concentration also explained ~11% of remaining variation in AIM following temperature correction. Relatively minor amounts of variation may be explained by food availability, phylogeny, and the locomotory mode of the teleosts. We also found strong correlation between growth and metabolic rate, which may be an underlying driver also related to temperature, depth, and other factors, or the 2 parameters may simply covary as a result of being linked by evolutionary pressures. Evaluating the influence of ecological and/or environmental drivers of growth is a vital step in understanding both the evolution of life history parameters across the depth continuum as well as their implications for species’ resilience to increasing anthropogenic stressors.

中文翻译：

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深海深海硬骨鱼生长缓慢的环境，进化和生态驱动因素

摘要：深海（海洋深度大于500 m）是全球最大的栖息地，其特点是温度较低，环境光线较低，相对于较浅的水域，食物条件较差。通常，深海硬骨鱼类的生长速度比浅海硬骨鱼类慢。但是，这是一个概括，即使在深海硬骨鱼当中，也存在广泛的增长率连续性。在深海物种中，诸如温度，食物供应，氧气浓度，代谢率和系统发育等潜在生长速率变异的潜在驱动因素的重要性尚未得到充分评估。我们提供了一项荟萃分析，其中收集了53种硬骨鱼的年龄和大小数据，这些硬骨鱼的集体深度范围从地表水到4000 m。我们使用日历和热年龄计算了增长指标，并将其与环境，生态和系统发育变量进行比较。光是温度就能解释von Bertalanffy生长系数变化的30％（K，yr ^-1）和质量的年均增加量（AIM，％）中21％的变化，这是成熟之前的增长指标。校正温度影响后，深度仍然是增长的主要驱动力，解释了K剩余变化的20％和10％和AIM。氧气浓度还解释了温度校正后，AIM中剩余的〜11％的变化。相对较小的变异可以用食物的可获得性，系统发育和硬骨鱼的运动模式来解释。我们还发现生长和代谢率之间有很强的相关性，这可能是与温度，深度和其他因素也相关的潜在驱动因素，或者这两个参数可能只是由于进化压力而相互转换。评估生态和/或环境增长驱动因素的影响，对于理解整个深度连续体中生命历史参数的演变及其对物种对不断增加的人为压力的适应力的影响至关重要。