Cardiac and metabolic physiology of early larval zebrafish (Danio rerio) reflects parental swimming stamina

Swimming stamina in adult fish is heritable, it is unknown if inherited traits that support enhanced swimming stamina in offspring appear only in juveniles and/or adults, or if these traits actually appear earlier in the morphologically quite different larvae. To answer this question, mature adult zebrafish (Danio rerio) were subjected to a swimming performance test that allowed separation into low swimming stamina or high swimming stamina groups. Adults were then bred within their own performance groups. Larval offspring from each of the two groups, designated high (LHSD) and low stamina-derived larvae (LLSD), were then reared at 27°C in aerated water (21% O2). Routine (fH,r) and active (fH,a) heart rate, and routine (M.O2,r) and active (M.O2,a) mass-specific oxygen consumption were recorded from 5 days post fertilization (dpf) through 21 dpf, and gross cost of transport and factorial aerobic metabolic scope were derived from M.O2 measurements. Heart rate generally ranged between 150 and 225 b•min-1 in both LHSD and LLSD populations. However, significant (P