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Large fish forage lower in the food web and food webs are more truncated in warmer climates

  • ECOLOGY OF SHALLOW LAKES
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Abstract

Body size is usually considered a good indicator of trophic position in fish communities. Indeed, the proverbial wisdom that “Big Fish Eat Little Fish” is consistent with observations from marine systems where systematic removal of the largest individuals has occurred, with cascading effect in the ecosystems. Trophic cascades are also well documented in temperate lakes but may not be as pronounced in (sub)tropical lakes due to higher degree of fish omnivory. We analysed fish communities along a climatic gradient and showed the classical correlation between body size and relative trophic position disappears in warmer climates where large fish appear to be feeding systematically on the lowest trophic levels. This concurs with experimental findings demonstrating that omnivorous fish tend to include more plant and less animal matter in their diet at higher temperatures. Accordingly, the community-wide trophic web indicators, calculated based on stable isotopes (δ13C and δ15N), showed that the average degree of trophic diversity declined from cold to warm lakes and that the trophic webs become more truncated towards warmer climates. This has implications for lake restoration approaches in warmer climates and in temperate lakes within the context of global warming.

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Data availability

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

We thank the SALGA (South America Lake Gradient Analysis) group for invaluable support before, during and after fieldwork. We deeply thank all students and researchers involved in the sampling. Special thanks to David da Motta Marques (UFRGS) for his great contribution to the project, Mario Vinicius Condini from the Laboratorio de Ictiologia (FURG) for analysing the fish samples from lakes in Rio Grande do Sul, and Dr. Carolina Crisci (CURE-UdelaR) for statistical advice. We are grateful to all lake owners for giving us access to the lakes and valuable information. We thank the reviewers for their thoughtful comments towards improving our manuscript.

Funding

This research was financed by The Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO) Grant W84-549 and WB84-586, The National Geographic Society Grant 7864-5; in Brazil by Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Cientifico e Tecnologico (CNPq) Grants 480122, 490409, 311427; in Uruguay by PEDECIBA, Maestría en Ciencias Ambientales, Aguas de la Costa S.A., Banco de Seguros del Estado, and the SNI of the Agencia Nacional de Investigación e Innovación (ANII). EJ was supported by the MARS project (Managing Aquatic ecosystems and water Resources under multiple Stress) funded under the 7th EU Framework Programme, Theme 6 (Environment including Climate Change), Contract No.: 603378 (http://www.mars-project.eu) and the TÜBITAK program 2232 (Project 118C250). MA was supported by FONDAP-FONDECYT to CASEB.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Ecología Funcional de Sistemas Acuáticos, Centro Universitario Regional del Este, Universidad de la República, Rocha, Uruguay

    Gissell Lacerot

  2. Department of Aquatic Ecology & Environmental Biology; Radboud Institute for Biological and Environmental Sciences (RIBES), Radboud University, Nijmegen, The Netherlands

    Sarian Kosten

  3. Laboratório de Ecologia Aquática, Universidade Federal de Juiz de Fora, Juiz de Fora, MG, Brazil

    Raquel Mendonça

  4. Department of Ecoscience and WATEC, Aarhus University, Silkeborg, Denmark

    Erik Jeppesen

  5. Sino-Danish Centre for Education and Research, University of the Chinese Academy of Science, Bei**g, China

    Erik Jeppesen

  6. Limnology Laboratory, Department of Biological Sciences and Centre for Ecosystem Research and Implementation, Middle East Technical University, Ankara, Turkey

    Erik Jeppesen

  7. Institute of Marine Sciences, Middle East Technical University, Mersin, Turkey

    Erik Jeppesen

  8. Departamento de Ecologia, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Norte, Natal, RN, Brazil

    José Luiz Attayde

  9. Departamento de Ecología y Gestión Ambiental, Centro Universitario Regional del Este, Universidad de la República, Maldonado, Uruguay

    Néstor Mazzeo, Franco Teixeira-de-Mello & Matías Arim

  10. Instituto SARAS, Bella Vista, Maldonado, Uruguay

    Néstor Mazzeo

  11. Département de chimie-biologie, Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières, Trois-Rivières, QC, Canada

    Gilbert Cabana

  12. Petrobras Transporte SA, Transpetro, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

    José Henrique Cantarino Gomes

  13. Nuclear Research Center, National University of Mongolia, Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia

    Sh Tserenpil

  14. Department of Aquatic Ecology and Water Quality Management, Wageningen University, Wageningen, The Netherlands

    Marten Scheffer

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  1. Gissell Lacerot
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  2. Sarian Kosten
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  12. Marten Scheffer
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Contributions

MS, GL, SK, EJ and NM contributed to the conceptual and methodological development of the project within the framework of the ‘South American Lake Gradient Analysis’ project (SALGA). GL and SK co-coordinated the fieldwork. GL, SK, RM, EJ, NM, JLA, DMM and MS conducted the fieldwork. RM analysed the stable isotope samples. FTM, JHG, JLA and GL analysed the fish samples. MA, TS and GC contributed with data analysis and theoretical background. GL, EJ, SK and MS wrote the manuscript. All authors discussed the results, commented and approved the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Gissell Lacerot.

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Lacerot, G., Kosten, S., Mendonça, R. et al. Large fish forage lower in the food web and food webs are more truncated in warmer climates. Hydrobiologia 849, 3877–3888 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10750-021-04777-6

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