Emersion behaviour underlies variation in gill morphology and aquatic respiratory function in the amphibious fish .

Fishes acclimated to hypoxic environments often increase gill surface area to improve O uptake. In some species, surface area is increased via reduction of an interlamellar cell mass (ILCM) that fills water channels between gill lamellae. Amphibious fishes, however, may not increase gill surface area in hypoxic water because these species can, instead, leave water and breathe air. To differentiate between these possibilities, we compared wild amphibious mangrove rivulus from two habitats that varied in O availability - a hypoxic freshwater pool versus nearly anoxic crab burrows. Fish captured from crab burrows had less gill surface area (as ILCMs were enlarged by ∼32%), increased rates of normoxic O consumption and increased critical O tension compared with fish from the freshwater pool. Thus, wild mangrove rivulus do not respond to near-anoxic water by decreasing metabolism or increasing O extraction. Instead, fish from the crab burrow habitat spent three times longer out of water, which probably caused the observed changes in gill morphology and respiratory phenotype. We also tested whether critical O tension is influenced by genetic heterozygosity, as is one of only two hermaphroditic vertebrate species that can produce both self-fertilized (inbred) or out-crossed (more heterozygous) offspring. We found no evidence for inbreeding depression, suggesting that self-fertilization does not impair respiratory function. Overall, our results demonstrate that amphibious fishes that inhabit hypoxic aquatic habitats can use a fundamentally different strategy from that used by fully aquatic water-breathing fishes, relying on escape behaviour rather than metabolic depression or increased O extraction ability.