Guidelines for reporting methods to estimate metabolic rates by aquatic intermittent-flow respirometry

Data and Script or the manuscript "Guidelines for reporting methods to estimate metabolic rates by aquatic intermittent-flow respirometry". ABSTRACT: Interest in the measurement of metabolic rates is growing rapidly, due to the relevance of metabolism in understanding organismal physiology, behaviour, evolution and responses to environmental change. The study of metabolism in aquatic animals is undergoing an especially pronounced expansion, with more researchers utilising intermittent-flow respirometry as a research tool than ever before. Aquatic respirometry measures rate of oxygen uptake a proxy for metabolic rates and the intermittent-flow technique has numerous strengths for use with aquatic animals, allowing metabolic rate to be repeatedly estimated on individual animals over several hours or days and during exposure to various conditions or stimuli. There are, however, no published guidelines for reporting of methodological details when using this method. Here we provide the first guidelines for reporting intermittent-flow respirometry methods, in the form of a checklist of criteria that we consider to be the minimum required for the interpretation, evaluation and replication of experiments using intermittent-flow respirometry. Furthermore, using a survey of the existing literature, we show that there has been incomplete and inconsistent reporting of methods for intermittent-flow respirometry over the last several decades. Use of the provided checklist of required criteria by researchers when publishing their work should increase consistency of the reporting of methods for studies that use intermittent-flow respirometry. With the steep increase in studies using intermittent-flow respirometry, now is the ideal time to standardise reporting of methods, so that – in the future – data can be properly assessed by other scientists and conservationists.