Does aerobic scope influence geographical distribution of teleost fishes?

Many abiotic and biotic factors are known to shape species' distributions, but we lack understanding of how innate physiological traits, such as aerobic scope (AS), may influence the latitudinal range of species. Based on theoretical assumptions, a positive link between AS and distribution range has been proposed, but there has been no broad comparative study across species to test this hypothesis. We collected metabolic rate data from the literature and performed a phylogenetically informed analysis to investigate the influence of AS on the current geographical distributions of 111 teleost fish species. Contrary to expectations, we found a negative relationship between absolute latitude range and thermal peak AS in temperate fishes. We found no evidence for an association between thermal range of AS and the range of latitudes occupied for 32 species. Our main results therefore contradict the prevailing theory of a positive link between AS and distribution range in fish. Fishes with a large geographical distribution are expected to also have a large aerobic scope (AS). Our study of the literature found, however, a negative correlation between maximum AS and distribution range fishes living in temperate climates. However, no link was found between thermal range AS and latitudinal range in 32 species.