Regularities of Variation of the Red Blood Indices Characterizing the Respiratory Function of Blood in Selected Fish

Regularities of Variation of the Red Blood Indices Characterizing the Respiratory Function of Blood in Selected Fish There is a large diversity of red blood indices determining oxygen transport ability in vertebrates. In fish this diversity is particularly large, probably due to the great variability in water environments, which impedes the possibility of finding and understanding general patterns. It has been assumed that in mammals, the measure determining the ability of a blood unit to transport oxygen is the ratio of hemoglobin concentration (HB) and total erythrocyte surface area (TSAE). It was also shown that both in mammals and birds the amount of hemoglobin per total surface area unit (Hb/TSAE) conditions maximum use of respiratory pigment in oxygen transport, in different physiological and environmental conditions. In order to check whether this regularity occurs in fish, red blood indices were analyzed in seven species of freshwater fish, differing noticeably in their biology and body mass in two seasons of the year. Notwithstanding this marked seasonal variability to the component variables together determining the total surface area of erythrocytes, the value for TSAE was found to differ in proportion to the higher or lower concentrations of HB. In consequence, the HB/TSAE ratio indicative of the maximal use of haemoglobin in the transport of oxygen was constant in all of the fish studied between analyzed seasons. This constancy - resembling that to be noted in birds - is most probably related to the counter-current gaseous exchange ongoing in the gills of fish.