Physiological performance of plaice Pleuronectes platessa (L.): A comparison of static and dynamic energy budgets Henk W. van der Veer a, ⁎, Joana F.M.F. Cardoso a,b , Myron A. Peck c , Sebastiaan A.L.M. Kooijman d a Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research (Royal NIOZ), P.O. Box 59,1790 AB Den Burg Texel, The Netherlands b CIMAR/CIIMAR — Centro Interdisciplinar de Investigação Marinha e Ambiental — Universidade do Porto, Rua dos Bragas 289, 4050-123 Porto, Portugal c University of Hamburg, Institute of Hydrobiology and Fisheries Science, Olbersweg 24, D-22767 Hamburg, Germany d Free University, Department of Theoretical Biology, De Boelelaan 1087,1081 HV Amsterdam, The Netherlands abstract article info Article history: Received 12 September 2008 Received in revised form 11 February 2009 Accepted 15 February 2009 Available online 5 March 2009 Keywords: Allometric Relationship Dynamic Energy Budget Physiology Plaice Pleuronectes platessa Static Energy Budget In the present study, various body size scaling relationships describing the physiological performance of plaice Pleuronectes platessa (L.) were derived using a dynamic energy budget (DEB) model and compared with allometric relationships derived from a static energy budget (SEB) model. Results indicated that DEB models can correctly predict the physiological performance of plaice within variable environments. Dynamic energy budgets are preferred over static energy budgets because they are not descriptive but based on first principles, they are not species-specific, and they can be used for extrapolations beyond the range of experimental data. Nevertheless, some aspects of the DEB model can still be improved. These include: [1] processes underlying the temperature tolerance range, temperature acclimation and the relationship between optimal temperature and body size; [2] the contribution of various processes to metabolism; and [3] the incorporation and quantification of Fry's scheme of the environment, especially of masking factors (e.g., sub-optimal salinity conditions which load the minimum metabolism) and limiting factors (e.g., low oxygen conditions that constrain the maximum metabolic rate). These improvements would offer a wide range of opportunities for further application, such as the reconstruction of food and growth conditions; the validation of age determination by means of otolith readings; the analysis of intraspecific genetic variability versus non-genetic phenotypic adaptations; and the interspecific comparison of energy flows by means of variability in the various DEB model parameters. © 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction The first studies on fish bioenergetics and growth in the 1950's were based on the assumption that the energy ingested in food was balanced by energy losses and energy retained as growth (Brown, 1957; Winberg, 1960). These static energy budgets (SEB) consist of a set of allometric functions describing the relationship between rates of energy budget parameters (e.g., rates of food consumption, growth, respiration) and fish size as modified by abiotic factors such as temperature (for overview see the Wisconsin model; Hanson et al., 1997). These early studies on static energy budgets resulted in the ‘Scope for Growth’ concept (Warren and Davis, 1967): energy invested in growth or reproduction is the difference between energy intake from food and losses from respiration and excretion and an organism is only able to allocate energy to growth or reproduction if energy gained exceeds energy loss. Although these static energy budgets can be determined under laboratory conditions, the various allometric relationships are a purely statistical description of measurements and not physiologically-based on first principles. In addition, these budgets are species-specific and difficult to use for extrapolations beyond the range of data on which they were calculated. Moreover, the dimensions of the various parameters are often not length (L 1 )-, surface (L 2 )- or volume (L 3 )- related but expressed as a fractional number and therefore mean- ingless and incorrect. Nevertheless, such laboratory-derived allo- metric relationships describing the physiological performance of fish can be useful. First of all, they provide an indirect way to estimate feeding in the field by natural (wild) populations. Secondly, they allow insight in the partitioning of energy resources between somatic growth and reproduction which is essential for understanding species' life history strategies (Roff, 1992; Stearns, 1992). More recently, another stimulus for these laboratory experiments has been the development of the aquaculture industry and the desire to maximise growth rates and growth efficiencies in cultured fish. Another weakness of static energy budgets is that they are unable to describe the energetics of an organism in a dynamically varying environment. This requires a framework describing the quantitative aspects of energy flows through an organism in a systematic and dynamic way. Dynamic energy budgets (DEB) fulfil these require- ments (Kooijman, 1988, 1993, 2000; Ross and Nisbet, 1990). Moreover, they are based on first principles and they can capture the life history Journal of Sea Research 62 (2009) 83–92 ⁎ Corresponding author. E-mail address: veer@nioz.nl (H.W. van der Veer). 1385-1101/$ – see front matter © 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.seares.2009.02.001 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Journal of Sea Research journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/seares