scholarly journals The trophic niche of sculpins Cottus spp. in forage fish assemblages of boreal lakes

2019 ◽  
Vol 96 (1) ◽  
pp. 92-101
Author(s):  
Christina M. Mozzon ◽  
Gretchen L. Lescord ◽  
Pascale‐Laure Savage ◽  
Thomas A. Johnston
Keyword(s):  
Fish Assemblages ◽  
Trophic Niche ◽  
Boreal Lakes ◽  
Forage Fish

scholarly journals Brook trout (Salvelinus fontinalis) extinction in small boreal lakes revealed by ephippia pigmentation: a preliminary analysis

2016 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexandre Bérubé Tellier ◽  
Paul E. Drevnick ◽  
Andrea Bertolo
Keyword(s):  
Brook Trout ◽  
Fish Assemblages ◽  
Salvelinus Fontinalis ◽  
Sediment Cores ◽  
Experimental Studies ◽  
Cost Effective ◽  
Fish Predation ◽  
Boreal Lakes ◽  
Predation Pressure ◽  
Trout Population

<p>Ephippium pigmentation is a plastic trait which can be related to a trade-off between visual predation pressure and better protection of cladoceran eggs against different types of stress. Experimental studies showed that planktivorous fish exert a greater predation pressure on individuals carrying darker ephippia, but little is known about the variation of ephippium pigmentation along gradients of fish predation pressure in natural conditions. For this study, our experimental design included four small boreal lakes with known fish assemblages. Two of the lakes have viable brook trout (<em>Salvelinus fontinalis</em>) populations, whereas the other two lakes experienced brook trout extinctions during the 20<sup>th</sup> century. Cladoceran ephippia were extracted from sediment cores at layers corresponding to the documented post- extinction phase (1990's) and from an older layer (1950's) for which the brook trout population status is not known precisely. Our first objective was to determine whether brook trout extinction has a direct effect on both ephippium pigmentation and size. Our second objective was to give a preliminary assessment of the status of brook trout populations in the 1950's by comparing the variation in ephippia traits measured from this layer to those measured in the 1990's, for which the extinction patterns are well known. Cost-effective image analysis was used to assess variation in pigmentation levels in ephippia. This approach provided a proxy for the amount of melanin invested in each ephippium analysed. Our study clearly shows that ephippium pigmentation may represent a better indicator of the presence of fish predators than ephippium size, a trait that showed a less clear pattern of variation between lakes with and without fish. For the 1990's period, ephippia from fishless lakes were darker and showed a slight tendency to be larger than ephippia from lakes with brook trout. However, no clear differences in either ephippium size or pigmentation were observed between the 1990's and 1950's layers within each lake. This suggests that brook trout extinction already occurred before the 1950’s, or that brook trout population abundance was already extremely low before and after the 1990’s. Our preliminary study shows that ephippium pigmentation can be used as a tool to quickly assess present and past predation levels on zooplankton when only sediment samples are available.</p>

TEMPORAL CHANGES IN MERCURY BIOACCUMULATION BY PREDATORY FISHES OF BOREAL LAKES FOLLOWING THE INVASION OF AN EXOTIC FORAGE FISH

2003 ◽  
Vol 22 (9) ◽  
pp. 2057 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas A. Johnston ◽  
William C. Leggett ◽  
Richard A. Bodaly ◽  
Heidi K. Swanson
Keyword(s):  
Temporal Changes ◽  
Boreal Lakes ◽  
Forage Fish ◽  
Mercury Bioaccumulation ◽  
Predatory Fishes

Salmonid or nonsalmonid lakes: predicting the fate of northern boreal fish communities with hierarchical filters relating to a keystone piscivore

2008 ◽  
Vol 65 (9) ◽  
pp. 1945-1955 ◽  
Author(s):  
Johan Spens ◽  
John P. Ball
Keyword(s):  
Brook Trout ◽  
Salmo Trutta ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Fish Assemblages ◽  
Salvelinus Alpinus ◽  
Fish Communities ◽  
Perca Fluviatilis ◽  
Boreal Lakes ◽  
Roach Rutilus Rutilus ◽  
High Connectivity

We determine if lacustrine salmonids show large-scale patterns of coexistence with the keystone predator northern pike ( Esox lucius ) and test an approach to predict fish communities using coexistence rules set in the context of three hierarchical filters that a species must pass to be present. The mutually exclusive species distribution patterns that we detected among 1029 lakes were repeatedly verified from results of whole-lake interventions with rotenone and introductions. Essentially, pike did not coexist with self-sustaining salmonid populations in lakes. High connectivity to pike (derived from maps) largely predicts the absence of lacustrine salmonids. Our analysis strongly suggests that pike prevented self-sustaining populations of brown trout ( Salmo trutta ), Arctic char ( Salvelinus alpinus ), and brook trout ( Salvelinus fontinalis ) in lakes. High connectivity to pike resulted in nonsalmonid lake fish communities, most often including both European perch ( Perca fluviatilis ) and roach ( Rutilus rutilus ). Our analysis suggests that if pike were not present in many boreal lakes where they now dwell, salmonid fish assemblages would prevail, a sharp contrast from the present pike-driven homogenized state with mainly nonsalmonid fish communities.

Differing Forage Fish Assemblages Influence Trophic Structure in Neighboring Urban Lakes

2009 ◽  
Vol 138 (4) ◽  
pp. 741-755 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nathanael C. Overman ◽  
David A. Beauchamp ◽  
Hans B. Berge ◽  
Michael M. Mazur ◽  
Jenifer K. McIntyre
Keyword(s):  
Trophic Structure ◽  
Fish Assemblages ◽  
Forage Fish ◽  
Urban Lakes

Community Ecology of Stream Fishes: Concepts, Approaches, and Techniques

2010 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Brown Trout ◽  
Brook Trout ◽  
Fish Assemblages ◽  
Smallmouth Bass ◽  
Fish Abundance ◽  
Forage Fish ◽  
Data Sets ◽  
Biotic Factors ◽  
Habitat Factors ◽  
Habitat Variables

<em>Abstract</em>.—In regional survey studies of habitat and fish assemblages, potentially important biological interactions can be masked by strong gradients in habitat variables and associated collinearities among biological variables. We used structural equation modeling to compare the causal influences of local habitat and biotic factors on fish density in rivers and to determine the extent to which the set of sites chosen for analysis influenced their apparent importance. When all sites in our Michigan data set were used, spatial patterns in brook trout <em>Salvelinus fontinalis </em>biomass were 28 times more sensitive to habitat variables than brown trout <em>Salmo trutta </em>biomass. However, when the sample was restricted to trout streams, then brook trout biomass patterns were twice as sensitive to brown trout biomass as habitat variables. In a similar analysis for smallmouth bass <em>Micropterus dolomieu</em>, habitat factors had the strongest effects on fish densities when the analysis was based on all samples available. However, when the sample was limited to steams in which smallmouth bass actually occurred, direct effects of forage fish abundance and indirect effects of habitat via forage fish abundance were more prominent. In both the trout and smallmouth bass analyses, regional data sets (which included sites where the species of interest was absent) overemphasized the importance of habitat factors on fish abundance, but restricting the sample to sites having the species of interest elevated the importance of biotic factors. In reality, both habitat and biotic factors are important to these species, but the variance structure of the sample being analyzed had an overriding influence on the statistical importance of one versus the other. These findings help to resolve apparently conflicting results of previous studies assessing the relative influence of habitat and biotic factors on population abundance.

Influence of Environmental Factors and Piscivory in Structuring Fish Assemblages of Small Alberta Lakes

1989 ◽  
Vol 46 (1) ◽  
pp. 81-89 ◽  
Author(s):  
Clifford L. K. Robinson ◽  
William M. Tonn
Keyword(s):  
North America ◽  
Yellow Perch ◽  
Fish Assemblages ◽  
Pimephales Promelas ◽  
Hierarchical Classification ◽  
Detrended Correspondence Analysis ◽  
Northern Pike ◽  
Boreal Lakes ◽  
Culaea Inconstans ◽  
Dominant Process

We surveyed 45 small lakes in central Alberta to determine if discrete, repeatable types of fish assemblages exist, to identify the main environmental and biotic processes likely responsible for assemblage-level patterns, and to compare and contrast Alberta patterns with those observed in other regions of North America. Overall, 11 species of fish were caught in 36 lakes; nine lakes were fishless. Hierarchical classification and detrended correspondence analysis of fish species presence/absence identified two main assemblage types, characterized by northern pike (Esox lucius) and yellow perch (Perca flavescens) versus brook stickleback (Culaea inconstans) and fathead minnow (Pimephales promelas). Pike/perch lakes were significantly deeper and larger than lakes of the stickleback/fathead assemblage type; however, a subset of the former group lacking yellow perch was environmentally similar to stickleback/fathead lakes. Piscivory by northern pike appears to be the dominant process maintaining nearly complete negative associations between members of the two assemblage types. Despite environmental and faunal-richness differences, our results were not unlike those from southern Ontario and northern Wisconsin. For small boreal lakes of North America, piscivory and processes related to a small number of environmental variables, such as maximum depth, surface area, and isolation, appear to be most important in structuring fish assemblages.

scholarly journals Plenty of room at the bottom: niche variation and segregation in large-bodied benthivores of boreal lakes

2019 ◽  
Vol 76 (8) ◽  
pp. 1411-1422 ◽  
Author(s):  
T.A. Johnston ◽  
A.D. Ehrman ◽  
G.L. Hamilton ◽  
B.K. Nugent ◽  
P.A. Cott ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Interspecific Interactions ◽  
Water Clarity ◽  
Trophic Niche ◽  
Boreal Lakes ◽  
Coregonus Clupeaformis ◽  
White Sucker ◽  
Lake Whitefish ◽  
Niche Variation ◽  
Trophic Niches ◽  
Benthivorous Fishes

Realized trophic niches of aquatic consumers are expected to reflect the particular abiotic and biotic conditions of the ecosystems they occupy. We examined patterns in the position, size, and shape of trophic niches of two common benthivorous fishes, white sucker (Catostomus commersonii) and lake whitefish (Coregonus clupeaformis), across boreal lakes using a stable isotope approach. In sympatry, white sucker niche positions reflected greater benthic reliance (higher δ13C) and lower trophic elevation (lower δ15N) compared with lake whitefish, and white sucker niche sizes (dispersion in δ13C–δ15N space) were also larger. Niche sizes of both species increased with maximum depth of lakes. Separation of trophic niche positions of the two species increased with increasing water clarity, but their niche sizes did not increase with increasing separation in their niche positions. White sucker occupied a niche position with slightly greater pelagic reliance and trophic elevation and had smaller trophic niches in the absence than in the presence of lake whitefish. Trophic niches of these benthivores appear to be shaped by both environmental factors and interspecific interactions.

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