Breathless: Reef fish cope with low oxygen
By Susan Milius
Despite their seemingly idyllic surroundings, coral reef fish show unexpected toughness, according to a new analysis of fish respiration.
In the first tests of low-oxygen tolerance among reef fish, all 31 species captured off the coast of Australia did surprisingly well, says Göran E. Nilsson of the University of Oslo. The reef fish matched the performance of the epaulette shark, famed for surviving oxygen drops in tide pools cut off from the surf, Nilsson and Sara Östlund-Nilsson report in an upcoming Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B.