Systematic deviations from linear size spectra of lake fish communities are correlated with predator–prey interactions and lake‐use intensity

Arranz, Ignasi; Hsieh, Chih‐hao; Mehner, Thomas; Brucet, Sandra

doi:10.1111/oik.05355

Cited by 19 publications

(16 citation statements)

References 73 publications

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“…Size spectra slopes are known to exhibit non‐linearity and deviations from the slope where low abundance and/or smaller size classes of predatory species occur (Arranz et al. ). With fewer larger animals, there is opportunity for an increase in the abundance of certain size classes, which in turn reduces predation pressure on other size classes.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Habitat complexity influences the structure of food webs in Great Barrier Reef seagrass meadows

et al. 2019

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Structural habitat complexity is a fundamental attribute influencing ecological food webs. Simplification of complex habitats occurs due to both natural and anthropogenic pressures that can alter productivity of food webs. Relationships between food web structure and habitat complexity may be influenced by multiple mechanisms, and untangling these can be challenging. We investigated whether (1) size spectra vary across a gradient of habitat complexity in seagrass meadows and (2) structural complexity changes the importance of different primary producers supporting the food web (determined using stable isotope analysis) in the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area. We found that moderately complex meadows had much steeper size spectra slopes, caused by a higher abundance of smaller animals and fewer larger animals, while meadows on either end of the complexity scale (low and a single meadow with very high complexity) had shallower slopes, indicative of a more balanced distribution of animal sizes across the spectrum. We also found that the importance of epiphytic algae as a food source was high in most meadows, despite the increase in seagrass surface area on which epiphytes could grow. The consistent importance of epiphytic algae suggests that the changes in the availability of different potential food sources did not affect food web structure. Our findings indicate that food web structure may change with variations in structural complexity because of changes in the abundance of smaller and/or larger animals. Food web structure and food sources are important determinants of the dynamic stability of food webs. Size spectra analysis is already used as a monitoring tool for assessing populations of key fisheries species in commercial fishing operations, and thus, we recommend using size spectra as a proxy for assessing the structure of the food webs in different types of seagrass meadows. Size spectra may be a useful indicator of how different meadows provide for ecosystem services such as fisheries.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The theory of size spectra has been well studied in aquatic environments such as lakes (Arranz et al. ) and marine habitats (Jennings et al. ), and changes in the spectrum of animal size in coral reefs have been used to specifically understand the role of habitat complexity (Wilson et al.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Habitat complexity influences the structure of food webs in Great Barrier Reef seagrass meadows

et al. 2019

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“…This was performed on the basis of similarity in mean δ 15 N and δ 13 C of invertebrates and fish (trophic structure), and the taxonomic richness (node diversity) of these groups (6 variables × 31 streams matrix). K -means clustering was performed in R v.3.4.0 [25] and the optimal number of clusters was determined from the lowest AIC score [9]. Two distinct clusters emerged with eight (lowland, eutrophic) streams in cluster k 1 and 23 (upland, oligotrophic) streams in cluster k 2 (electronic supplementary material, figure S1).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Systematic variation in food web body-size structure linked to external subsidies

et al. 2021

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The relationship between body mass (M) and size class abundance (N) depicts patterns of community structure and energy flow through food webs. While the general assumption is that M and N scale linearly (on log–log axes), nonlinearity is regularly observed in natural systems, and is theorized to be driven by nonlinear scaling of trophic level (TL) with M resulting in the rapid transfer of energy to consumers in certain size classes. We tested this hypothesis with data from 31 stream food webs. We predicted that allochthonous subsidies higher in the web results in nonlinear M–TL relationships and systematic abundance peaks in macroinvertebrate and fish size classes (latter containing salmonids), that exploit terrestrial plant material and terrestrial invertebrates, respectively. Indeed, both M–N and M–TL significantly deviated from linear relationships and the observed curvature in M–TL scaling was inversely related to that observed in M–N relationships. Systemic peaks in M–N, and troughs in M–TL occurred in size classes dominated by generalist invertebrates, and brown trout. Our study reveals how allochthonous resources entering high in the web systematically shape community size structure and demonstrates the relevance of a generalized metabolic scaling model for understanding patterns of energy transfer in energetically ‘open’ food webs.

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“…Another measure of predator-prey interactions that affect the size distribution of a community is the ratio between predator and prey body size (predator-prey mass ratio, PPMR) (Arranz et al, 2019).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Can size distributions of European lake fish communities be predicted by trophic positions of their fish species?

Dorst

Argillier

Brucet

et al. 2022

Ecology and Evolution

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An organism's body size plays an important role in ecological interactions such as predator–prey relationships. As predators are typically larger than their prey, this often leads to a strong positive relationship between body size and trophic position in aquatic ecosystems. The distribution of body sizes in a community can thus be an indicator of the strengths of predator–prey interactions. The aim of this study was to gain more insight into the relationship between fish body size distribution and trophic position in a wide range of European lakes. We used quantile regression to examine the relationship between fish species' trophic position and their log‐transformed maximum body mass for 48 fish species found in 235 European lakes. Subsequently, we examined whether the slopes of the continuous community size distributions, estimated by maximum likelihood, were predicted by trophic position, predator–prey mass ratio (PPMR), or abundance (number per unit effort) of fish communities in these lakes. We found a positive linear relationship between species' maximum body mass and average trophic position in fishes only for the 75% quantile, contrasting our expectation that species' trophic position systematically increases with maximum body mass for fish species in European lakes. Consequently, the size spectrum slope was not related to the average community trophic position, but there were negative effects of community PPMR and total fish abundance on the size spectrum slope. We conclude that predator–prey interactions likely do not contribute strongly to shaping community size distributions in these lakes.

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Systematic deviations from linear size spectra of lake fish communities are correlated with predator–prey interactions and lake‐use intensity

Cited by 19 publications

References 73 publications

Habitat complexity influences the structure of food webs in Great Barrier Reef seagrass meadows

Habitat complexity influences the structure of food webs in Great Barrier Reef seagrass meadows

Systematic variation in food web body-size structure linked to external subsidies

Can size distributions of European lake fish communities be predicted by trophic positions of their fish species?

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