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A fundamental model for oxygen consumption of Atlantic salmon

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Abstract

Predicting oxygen availability in Atlantic salmon farms is challenging, but digital simulations that couple bioenergetics and hydrodynamics show great promise. Robust simulations depend on reliable estimates of oxygen demand, yet previous empirical models offer limited accuracy. Here, we present a refined fundamental model for Atlantic salmon oxygen consumption rate (MO2) as a function of three readily measurable parameters: body weight, water temperature, and relative swimming speed. Retaining the established framework of Grøttum and Sigholt (1998), we refined the model through an improved coefficient estimation approach and a methodologically rigorous dataset derived from group swim tunnel respirometry measurements on 718 fish across seven experiments. Model coefficients were re-estimated using log-linear regression fitted via nonlinear mixed-effects, substantially improving parameterisation and yielding a model that explains 80% of the observed variation in MO2:({MO}_{2}=79.7{W}^{-0.14}1.0{4}^{T}1.{63}^{U}), where MO2 is oxygen consumption rate (mg O2 kg− 1 h− 1), W is body weight (kg), T is water temperature (°C), and U is relative swimming speed (body lengths s− 1). Our model delivers reliable estimates of Atlantic salmon oxygen demand across relevant farming conditions (0.2–3.4 kg, 3–18 °C, 0.3–2.8 body lengths s− 1). With broad utility in both research and industry, our model supports the development of more precise, data-driven strategies for modern salmon aquaculture.

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Data availability

The dataset and R script supporting the conclusions of this article are publicly available in the Zenodo repository: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.19248487.

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Acknowledgements

We thank Tina Oldham for her contributions to our dataset and Luke Barrett for his valuable input during the preparation of this manuscript.

Funding

Open access funding provided by Institute Of Marine Research. This study was jointly funded by the Norwegian Seafood Research Fund (901934–ProHav) and the Research Council of Norway (328724–SusOffAqua).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Sustainable Aquaculture Laboratory – Temperate and Tropical (SALTT), Deakin University, Geelong, Australia

    André Morin, Tim Dempster & Fletcher Warren-Myers

  2. Department of Engineering Cybernetics, Faculty of Information Technology and Electrical Engineering, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim, Norway

    Terje Jacobsson

  3. Animal Welfare Research Group, Institute of Marine Research, Matre, Norway

    Frode Oppedal & Malthe Hvas

Authors

  1. André Morin
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  2. Terje Jacobsson
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  3. Tim Dempster
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  4. Fletcher Warren-Myers
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  5. Frode Oppedal
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  6. Malthe Hvas
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Contributions

AM: conceptualisation, data curation, formal analysis, methodology, software, visualisation, writing—original draft. TJ: conceptualisation, formal analysis, validation, writing—review and editing. TD: funding acquisition, project administration, resources, supervision, writing—review and editing. FWM: supervision, writing—review and editing. FO: funding acquisition, project administration, resources, supervision, writing—review and editing. MH: data curation, investigation, supervision, writing—review and editing.All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to
André Morin or Malthe Hvas.

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The authors declare no competing interests.

Ethics approval

This study involved no primary animal experimentation. All analyses were based on data from previously published experiments which were approved by the Norwegian Food Safety Authority and conducted in accordance with the Norwegian Animal Welfare Act (LOV-2009-06-19-97) and ARRIVE guidelines.

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Morin, A., Jacobsson, T., Dempster, T. et al. A fundamental model for oxygen consumption of Atlantic salmon.
Sci Rep (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-026-47328-6

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Keywords

  • Allometric
  • Bioenergetics
  • Metabolic Rate
  • Swim Tunnel Respirometry
  • Temperature

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