Gasping Fish and Panting Squids Oxygen, Temperature and the Growth of Water Breathing Animals

About this book

The Gill-Oxygen Limitation Theory (GOLT) presented by Daniel Pauly describes how water-breathing fish and invertebrates meet the challenge of extracting crucially needed oxygen from water, which contains little of it. The challenge is that their gill surface, through which oxygen must penetrate, cannot keep pace with the growth of the bodies that require this oxygen. Additionally, the GOLT explains a wide range of other fish growth and metabolic phenomena, and most importantly explains why fish cannot readily adapt to the increasing water temperatures that climate change brings about, and thus respond by moving poleward and/or to deeper waters. This second edition of the book presents new evidence and resolves various misunderstandings connected with the GOLT.

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Biography

Daniel Pauly, who is both French and Canadian, studied fisheries science in Germany and spent much of his career in the tropics, notably in the Philippines. Since 1994, he is a Professor of Fisheries at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada, where he directs the Sea Around Us project, initially funded by the Pew Charitable Trusts, and since 2014 by a variety of foundations, and which is devoted to studying, documenting and mitigating the impact of fisheries on the world’s marine ecosystems. The concepts, methods and software he (co-)developed are documented in over 1000 widely-cited publications and have led to his receiving multiple scientific awards.