The effect of interaction between the stone loach Noemacheilus barbatulus (L.) and the bullhead Cottus gobio (L.) on prey and habitat selection

Abstract

Stone loach and bullhead were given a choice of Chironomus and Asellus prey in experiments using solitary fish and fish in company . Solitary fish ate more than fish in company . The effect of light and substratum type on feeding was investigated . Both species ate more prey items on gravel than silt when a significant difference was observed . Bullhead ate more than loach in the light on both substrata. The only experiment in which loach ate more than bullhead was on a silt substratum in the dark . It is concluded that these two species utilise different components of the available food resources in chalk streams by adopting different habitats.

Habitat use by the fish assemblages of two chalk streams

“…In contrast, Zweimüller (1995) observed in a small Austrian stream, that stone loach selected shallow and current-exposed locations without clear affinities for a particular substratum. Welton et al (1991) observed that in aquaria loach consumed significantly more prey on gravel substrata than on silt. Thus, according to this, the observed loach substratum preference can be considered as induced or dependent on other factors apart from prey availability.…”

Long-term changes in fish assemblages of the Widawka and Grabia Rivers (Poland): pattern recognition with a Kohonen artificial neural network

“…On the one hand, laboratory experiments show that it hardly tolerates severe pollution (Clark & Fraser 1983), but on the other hand it is a first dominant in polluted streams (Siligato & Böhmer 2001). In general, it prefers coarser substrates (Welton et al 1991, Mastrorillo & Dauba 1999, Fischer 2000, but is highly adaptable in this respect (Fischer 2000). Even in canalised and lacking natural in-channel shelter streams, stone loach may be very abundant (Brunken 1989, Siligato & Böhmer 2001, as they can hide in gaps between concrete slabs .…”

Assessing the ecological impacts of invasive species based on their functional responses and abundances

“…Then, we repeat this exercise with the highly invasive and ecologically damaging topmouth gudgeon, Pseudorasbora parva, an Asian fish which has also invaded European waters (Britton et al 2010;Gozlan et al 2010), and its native analogue the European bitterling, Rhodeus amarus, towards two prey species, Daphnia magna and Chironomus spp.. We stress that this exercise is to compare and quantify the impacts of the invaders on the broader prey community and it is not intended to examine any interaction, such as competition, among the invader and native fishes (but see Dick et al 2014Dick et al , 2017. Amphipods and isopods were chosen as common prey items of these fish species (see Welton et al 1991;Dubs and Corkum 1996;Corkum et al 2004;Barton et al 2005). Fishes were obtained using electrofishing (Hans Grassl IG600 type, Aquaculture, France), while prey species were collected by kick sampling (E. berilloni) and dip netting (A. aquaticus).…”