Habitat as a Template for Life Histories of Fish

A special issue of Fishes (ISSN 2410-3888). This special issue belongs to the section "Biology and Ecology".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 1 November 2025 | Viewed by 153

Special Issue Editor


E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Norwegian Institute for Nature Research, Sognsveien 68, 0855 Oslo, Norway
Interests: fish ecology; fish bioenergetics; fish behaviour; life history; fisheries
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

The Special Issue welcomes field or laboratory studies that test the life history effects of environmental variations, as well as reviews and theoretical papers on this topic.

Life histories regard how individuals grow and survive to maximize the number of highly viable offspring in competition with others. They quantify how individual traits are expressed in response to environmental change, and cover aspects such as habitat use, foraging, migration, dispersal, growth, age and size at maturity of sexes, length of life span, fecundity and reproduction, the timing of these traits, and how they change in response to environmental variation. These traits are all closely related to the fitness of individuals. Environmental changes may include variations in physical habitats, temperature, water flow and level, water quality, nutrient richness, vegetation, and conditions such as competition, predation, or anthropogeny influences like harvest regimes or any kind of pollution. Studies may include concepts such as polymorphism, ontogenetic niche shifts, stunting, partial migration, sex ratio variation, among others. Reaction norms of life history variables, in relation to environmental parameters, will help us predict how individuals and their offspring react to future environmental impacts, whether due to abiotic or a biotic influences. This knowledge is at the core of conservation ecology and important for the management of species.

Prof. Dr. Bror Jonsson
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Fishes is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • ecological trait trade-offs
  • environmental stress
  • life history traits
  • local adaptation
  • phenotypic plasticity
  • reaction norms

Benefits of Publishing in a Special Issue

  • Ease of navigation: Grouping papers by topic helps scholars navigate broad scope journals more efficiently.
  • Greater discoverability: Special Issues support the reach and impact of scientific research. Articles in Special Issues are more discoverable and cited more frequently.
  • Expansion of research network: Special Issues facilitate connections among authors, fostering scientific collaborations.
  • External promotion: Articles in Special Issues are often promoted through the journal's social media, increasing their visibility.
  • Reprint: MDPI Books provides the opportunity to republish successful Special Issues in book format, both online and in print.

Further information on MDPI's Special Issue policies can be found here.

Published Papers (1 paper)

Order results
Result details
Select all
Export citation of selected articles as:

Research

10 pages, 1499 KiB  
Article
Habitat Matters: Behavior and Activity of Round Goby (Neogobius melanostomus) at Different Substrates
by Anna Dziubińska, Mariusz Sapota and Emilia Socha
Fishes 2025, 10(7), 319; https://doi.org/10.3390/fishes10070319 - 2 Jul 2025
Abstract
This study focuses on the behavior of the Round Goby in relation to various types of hard substrates, which may be crucial in the context of the emergence of hydrotechnical structures in their habitat. The aim of this study was to determine the [...] Read more.
This study focuses on the behavior of the Round Goby in relation to various types of hard substrates, which may be crucial in the context of the emergence of hydrotechnical structures in their habitat. The aim of this study was to determine the behavior and habitat preferences of the Round Goby in relation to specific types of hard substrates. Three types of substrates were used in the experiments: bare, colonized by benthic organisms, and rocky. Laboratory observations were conducted and divided into three variants, each with two cycles—daytime and nighttime. Each variant involved different combinations of two substrates. It was found that during the day, fish spent more time on vegetated substrates than on bare or rocky ones. At night, the opposite trend was observed. The lowest activity was recorded when the fish had a choice between bare and rocky substrates. The largest fish in the experiments changed their habitat most frequently, indicating that body size influences the activity level. However, no significant differences were found in either the time spent on specific substrates or the number of substrate changes. In addition, it was observed that the total length of Round Gobies did not affect their activity level. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Habitat as a Template for Life Histories of Fish)
Show Figures

Graphical abstract

Back to TopTop