Tuesday July 23, 2024
NOAA Fisheries —
A new study on sharks finds that physical traits related to oxygen uptake can be measured from accurate drawings of nearly all sharks. Scientists learned more about the critical relationship between a species’ ecology (habitat, activity, size) and oxygen uptake. This is traditionally measured by transporting an animal to a laboratory and measuring oxygen consumption in a controlled setting. This is difficult to do for large-bodied, free-swimming organisms such as sharks.
A preceding study uncovered a relationship between gill surface area and gill slit height, two physical traits that are related to oxygen uptake. This means the larger the gill slit height, the larger the internal surface area, and the larger capacity for oxygen uptake. However, gill surface area takes about 20–40 hours to measure per individual and requires sacrificing the animal. The researchers showed that they can get an idea of the oxygen uptake just by measuring gill slit height on physical specimens or from anatomically-correct drawings. As a result, they are able to use these drawings for future work to avoid lethal sampling.