PLoS ONE 15(5):Įditor: Madison Powell, University of Idaho, UNITED STATES We discuss the implications of the study for understanding effects of multiple stressors on population heterogeneity and note the possible significance of stress response selection under climate change in which heat stress and food limitations occur in concert.Ĭitation: Gosselin JL, Anderson JJ (2020) Step-patterned survivorship curves: Mortality and loss of equilibrium responses to high temperature and food restriction in juvenile rainbow trout ( Oncorhynchus mykiss). Thus, their endpoint sensitivities resulted in step-patterned survivorship curves. The coherence in these temporal patterns suggest heterogeneity in the cohort stress responses, in which an early subgroup died from heat stress and a late subgroup died from starvation. g -1 energy) all occurred at around days 10–15 of the challenge.The step transition in the survivorship curves, the peak mortality rates, and start of when individuals reached a critical energetic threshold (14% dry mass 4.0 kJ To examine the cause of heterogeneity in the stress responses from early to late mortality and LOE, we measured indices of energetic reserves. We observed step-patterned survivorship curves determined by mortality and loss of equilibrium (LOE) endpoints. To explore this process, we examined the effects of heat (24☌) and food restriction on juvenile rainbow trout ( Oncorhynchus mykiss Walbaum) in challenge experiments. While survivorship curves typically exhibit smooth declines over time, step-patterned curves can occur with multiple stressors within a life stage.