16/03/2026
Baby eastern fortescue (Centropogon australis) exercising its colour matching. Think its camouflage is impressive? There’s actually two other individuals in this photo!
While this fortescue didn’t make $5.2 billion AUD profit in the last financial year, fortescues are still worth attention, as an ideal study species. They’ve been found to grow faster at higher temperatures, which is probably expected, but only to a certain point; beyond that, their growth starts slowing down again. Importantly, the way their growth changes with temperature is different when compared with other rock pool fish (Connor & Booth, 2021; Booth et al., 2014). This, as the authors point out, has implications when considering the effects of climate change; species better able to take advantage of higher temperatures would have an edge over others. There are follow-on effects too - fortescues, like many species of fish, rely on rock pools as nurseries before moving out to deeper water, so if rock pool survival changes, different numbers of adults would enter their adult habitats, potentially changing the species compositions there too.
Sources:
O’Connor, C. and Booth, D.J., 2021. ‘Response of estuarine fishes to elevated temperatures within temperate Australia: Implications of climate change on fish growth and foraging performance. Journal of Experimental Marine Biology and Ecology, 544:151626.
Booth, D.J., Poulos, D.E., Poole, J. and Feary, D.A., 2014. ‘Growth and temperature relationships for juvenile fish species in seagrass beds: implications of climate change.’ Journal of fish biology, 84(1):231-236.
ISO 250, F3.5, 1/160s
