ABSTRACT
The aquatic environment of fish can vary over developmental and evolutionary time scales, eliciting responses at levels of organization ranging from the gene to the whole-animal. Temperature and environmental variables such as oxygen availability, pH, salinity, pollution and turbidity can directly and/or indirectly influence physiological processes and behaviour in fish. Temperature is the most studied environmental factor affecting unsteady swimming performance and has direct, and indirect, implications for the escape and prey capture of fish. Strikes and escapes are unsteady swimming behaviours that are relatively well characterized, particularly from a biomechanical standpoint. Oxygen level in aquatic environments is critical to the survival of all fishes and can influence their physiology, behaviour, distribution and predator-prey relationships. There is clearly a need for increasing the integration of various disciplines of biology to improve the understanding of the effect of environmental factors on predator-prey and mating encounters.
