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. 2011 Nov 14;6(11):e27055. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0027055

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Fablet et al.

This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are properly credited.

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Otolith formation corresponds to an accretion of successive layers of calcium carbonate (CaCO₃) embedded in an organic matrix (OM) which precursors are synthesized by the saccular epithelium. At a yearly scale seasonal environmental and physiological variations induce opacity changes with an alternated deposition of translucent (TZ) and opaque (OZ) zones appearing respectively as dark and bright zones under reflected light. We here state the otolith as a metabolic product as defined by the Dynamic Energy Budget (DEB) theory for metabolic organization [18]; Otolith formation is driven by fish growth (p_G) and maintenance (p_M) metabolic fluxes which depend on the individual state and the temperature and feeding conditions the fish experiences. We also account for the temperature-dependent dynamics of CaCO₃ precipitation [15].