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Baer J, Ziegaus S, Schumann M, Geist J, Brinker A. Escaping malnutrition by shifting habitats: A driver of three-spined stickleback invasion in Lake Constance. JOURNAL OF FISH BIOLOGY 2024; 104:746-757. [PMID: 37984830 DOI: 10.1111/jfb.15622] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/15/2023] [Revised: 11/14/2023] [Accepted: 11/15/2023] [Indexed: 11/22/2023]
Abstract
Fatty acids, and especially long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids, are biologically important components in the metabolism of vertebrates, including fish. Essential fatty acids (EFA) are those that in a given animal cannot be synthesized or modified from precursors and must therefore be acquired via the diet. Because EFAs are often unevenly distributed in nature, this requirement may drive species to make behavioral or ecological adaptations to avoid malnutrition. This is especially true for fish like the three-spined stickleback (Gasterosteus aculeatus L.) of Upper Lake Constance (ULC), whose recent marine ancestors evolved with access to EFA-rich prey, but which found themselves in an EFA-deficient habitat. An unexpected and unprecedented ecological shift in the ULC stickleback population from the littoral to pelagic zones in 2012 might be linked to EFA availability, triggering ecological release and enabling them to build a hyperabundant population while displacing the former keystone species, the pelagic whitefish Coregonus wartmanni. To test this hypothesis, sticklebacks from the littoral and pelagic zones of ULC were sampled seasonally in two consecutive years, and their stomach contents and fatty acid profiles were analysed. Pelagic sticklebacks were found to possess significantly higher values of an important EFA, docosahexaenoic acid (DHA), especially during autumn. Evaluation of the DHA supply suggests that sticklebacks feeding in the littoral zone during autumn could not meet their DHA requirement, whereas DHA availability in the pelagic zone was surplus to demand. During autumn, pelagic sticklebacks consumed large amounts of DHA-rich prey, that is, copepods, whereas littoral sticklebacks relied mainly mostly on cladocerans, which provide much lower quantities of DHA. Access to pelagic zooplankton in 2012 was possibly facilitated by low densities of previously dominant zooplanktivorous whitefish. The present study offers a convincing physiological explanation for the observed expansion of invasive sticklebacks from the littoral to the pelagic zones of Lake Constance, contributing to a phase shift with severe consequences for fisheries.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jan Baer
- Fisheries Research Station Baden-Württemberg, Langenargen, Germany
| | - Sabrina Ziegaus
- Fisheries Research Station Baden-Württemberg, Langenargen, Germany
- Aquatic Systems Biology Unit, Department of Life Science Systems, Technical University of Munich, TUM School of Life Sciences, Freising, Germany
| | - Mark Schumann
- Fisheries Research Station Baden-Württemberg, Langenargen, Germany
| | - Juergen Geist
- Aquatic Systems Biology Unit, Department of Life Science Systems, Technical University of Munich, TUM School of Life Sciences, Freising, Germany
| | - Alexander Brinker
- Fisheries Research Station Baden-Württemberg, Langenargen, Germany
- University of Constance, Institute for Limnology, Konstanz, Germany
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Moosmann M, Greenway R, Oester R, Matthews B. The role of fish predators and their foraging traits in shaping zooplankton community structure. Ecol Lett 2024; 27:e14382. [PMID: 38361474 DOI: 10.1111/ele.14382] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/21/2023] [Revised: 01/02/2024] [Accepted: 01/15/2024] [Indexed: 02/17/2024]
Abstract
Differentiation of foraging traits among predator populations may help explain observed variation in the structure of prey communities. However, few studies have investigated the phenotypic effects of predators on their prey in natural communities. Here, we use a comparative analysis of 78 Greenlandic lakes to examine how foraging trait variation among threespine stickleback populations can help explain variation in zooplankton community composition among lakes. We find that landscape-scale variation in zooplankton composition was jointly explained by lake properties, such as size and water chemistry, and the presence and absence of both stickleback and arctic char. Additional variation in zooplankton community structure can be explained by stickleback jaw protrusion, a trait with known utility for foraging on zooplankton, but only in lakes where stickleback co-occur with arctic char. Overall, our results illustrate how trait variation of predators, alongside other ecosystem properties, can influence the composition of prey communities in nature.
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Affiliation(s)
- Marvin Moosmann
- Department of Fish Ecology and Evolution, EAWAG, Kastanienbaum, Switzerland
- Swiss Ornithological Institute, Sempach, Switzerland
| | - Ryan Greenway
- Department of Biology, University of Constance, Constance, Germany
| | - Rebecca Oester
- Department of Aquatic Ecology, EAWAG, Kastanienbaum, Dübendorf, Switzerland
| | - Blake Matthews
- Department of Fish Ecology and Evolution, EAWAG, Kastanienbaum, Switzerland
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Hudson CM, Cuenca Cambronero M, Moosmann M, Narwani A, Spaak P, Seehausen O, Matthews B. Environmentally independent selection for hybrids between divergent freshwater stickleback lineages in semi-natural ponds. J Evol Biol 2023; 36:1166-1184. [PMID: 37394735 DOI: 10.1111/jeb.14194] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/16/2022] [Revised: 05/03/2023] [Accepted: 05/31/2023] [Indexed: 07/04/2023]
Abstract
Hybridization following secondary contact of genetically divergent populations can influence the range expansion of invasive species, though specific outcomes depend on the environmental dependence of hybrid fitness. Here, using two genetically and ecologically divergent threespine stickleback lineages that differ in their history of freshwater colonization, we estimate fitness variation of parental lineages and hybrids in semi-natural freshwater ponds with contrasting histories of nutrient loading. In our experiment, we found that fish from the older freshwater lineage (Lake Geneva) and hybrids outperformed fish from the younger freshwater lineage (Lake Constance) in terms of both growth and survival, regardless of the environmental context of our ponds. Across all ponds, hybrids exhibited the highest survival. Although wild-caught adult populations differed in their functional and defence morphology, it is unclear which of these traits underlie the fitness differences observed among juveniles in our experiment. Overall, our work suggests that when hybrid fitness is insensitive to environmental conditions, as observed here, introgression may promote population expansion into unoccupied habitats and accelerate invasion success.
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Affiliation(s)
- Cameron Marshall Hudson
- Department of Fish Ecology and Evolution, Eawag, Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology, Center of Ecology, Evolution and Biochemistry, Lucerne, Switzerland
- Division of Aquatic Ecology and Evolution, Institute of Ecology and Evolution, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland
- Department of Aquatic Ecology, Eawag, Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology, Zürich, Switzerland
| | - Maria Cuenca Cambronero
- Department of Fish Ecology and Evolution, Eawag, Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology, Center of Ecology, Evolution and Biochemistry, Lucerne, Switzerland
- Aquatic Ecology Group, University of Vic, Central University of Catalonia, Vic, Spain
| | - Marvin Moosmann
- Department of Fish Ecology and Evolution, Eawag, Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology, Center of Ecology, Evolution and Biochemistry, Lucerne, Switzerland
- Division of Aquatic Ecology and Evolution, Institute of Ecology and Evolution, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland
| | - Anita Narwani
- Department of Aquatic Ecology, Eawag, Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology, Zürich, Switzerland
| | - Piet Spaak
- Department of Aquatic Ecology, Eawag, Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology, Zürich, Switzerland
| | - Ole Seehausen
- Department of Fish Ecology and Evolution, Eawag, Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology, Center of Ecology, Evolution and Biochemistry, Lucerne, Switzerland
- Division of Aquatic Ecology and Evolution, Institute of Ecology and Evolution, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland
| | - Blake Matthews
- Department of Fish Ecology and Evolution, Eawag, Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology, Center of Ecology, Evolution and Biochemistry, Lucerne, Switzerland
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Danger M, Bec A, Spitz J, Perga M. Questioning the roles of resources nutritional quality in ecology. OIKOS 2022. [DOI: 10.1111/oik.09503] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/30/2022]
Affiliation(s)
- Michael Danger
- Univ. de Lorraine, CNRS, LIEC Metz France
- GRET (Groupe de Recherche en Ecologie Trophique), GDR 3716 CNRS INEE INRA Aubière France
- Inst. Universitaire de France (IUF) Paris France
| | - Alexandre Bec
- GRET (Groupe de Recherche en Ecologie Trophique), GDR 3716 CNRS INEE INRA Aubière France
- Univ. Clermont Auvergne, CNRS, LMGE Aubière France
| | - Jérôme Spitz
- GRET (Groupe de Recherche en Ecologie Trophique), GDR 3716 CNRS INEE INRA Aubière France
- Observatoire Pelagis, UAR 3462 La Rochelle Université/CNRS La Rochelle France
- CEBC, UMS 7372 La Rochelle Université/CNRS La Rochelle France
| | - Marie‐Elodie Perga
- GRET (Groupe de Recherche en Ecologie Trophique), GDR 3716 CNRS INEE INRA Aubière France
- Univ. of Lausanne, Inst. of Earth surface Dynamics Lausanne Switzerland
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