Cold hardiness of the eggs of the plaice,Pleuronectes platessa

Summary The pelagic eggs of the plaice, Pleuronectes platessa, at the stage of first heart beat, can tolerate freezing into solid sea ice at temperatures down to-6°C. A long term freezing period of 5 days, at sublethal temperatures of-3 to-4°C, had only a minor effect on the eggs. When the ice was absent from the medium, the eggs supercooled readily to temperatures around-15° to-20°C. However, no thermal hysteresis agents were present in the eggs at low temperature and the cold hardiness therefore seem to rely on a high tolerance to brine solutions at low temperatures.