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      Stable isotope values and trophic analysis of invasive three-spined stickleback in Upper Lake Constance points to significant piscivory

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          Abstract

          The three-spined stickleback Gasterosteus aculeatus was introduced into Lake Constance in the 1940s and occupied a limited range until late 2012. Since then the species has expanded from a solely littoral habitat in Upper Lake Constance, but now makes seasonal migrations into the pelagic zone. This behavioral change has been accompanied by a drastic increase in stickleback abundance. In order to integrate information about feeding of sticklebacks in Upper Lake Constance over two consecutive years, stomach content analysis was combined with seasonal stable isotope analysis on two types of tissue (muscle and liver). Isotope values were also obtained for zooplankton, whitefish larvae and eggs. We calculated the contribution of potential food sources for sticklebacks’ diet using a Bayesian mixing model (SIMMR). Furthermore, we determined stickleback trophic position, and δ15N and δ13C values were compared with those of other fish species of Lake Constance. The results of the Bayesian model as well as the stomach content analysis showed clear evidence of stickleback predation on fish eggs and larvae. Stickleback δ15N values were elevated during winter and comparable to those of piscivorous pike, while δ15N values of zooplankton were reduced, and those of whitefish larvae were similar to those of sticklebacks after accounting trophic fractionation of N isotopes. Trophic position calculations further identified sticklebacks as piscivorous, while the δ13C values of the liver and stomach content analysis suggests that a benthic-pelagic species pair may exist in Lake Constance. These findings support the hypotheses that sticklebacks in Lake Constance can display piscivorous feeding behaviour on sympatric fish species, most likely whitefish larvae and eggs.

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          USING STABLE ISOTOPES TO ESTIMATE TROPHIC POSITION: MODELS, METHODS, AND ASSUMPTIONS

          David Post (2002)
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            Comparing isotopic niche widths among and within communities: SIBER - Stable Isotope Bayesian Ellipses in R.

            1. The use of stable isotope data to infer characteristics of community structure and niche width of community members has become increasingly common. Although these developments have provided ecologists with new perspectives, their full impact has been hampered by an inability to statistically compare individual communities using descriptive metrics. 2. We solve these issues by reformulating the metrics in a Bayesian framework. This reformulation takes account of uncertainty in the sampled data and naturally incorporates error arising from the sampling process, propagating it through to the derived metrics. 3. Furthermore, we develop novel multivariate ellipse-based metrics as an alternative to the currently employed Convex Hull methods when applied to single community members. We show that unlike Convex Hulls, the ellipses are unbiased with respect to sample size, and their estimation via Bayesian inference allows robust comparison to be made among data sets comprising different sample sizes. 4. These new metrics, which we call SIBER (Stable Isotope Bayesian Ellipses in R), open up more avenues for direct comparison of isotopic niches across communities. The computational code to calculate the new metrics is implemented in the free-to-download package Stable Isotope Analysis for the R statistical environment. © 2011 The Authors. Journal of Animal Ecology © 2011 British Ecological Society.
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              Alien species in fresh waters: ecological effects, interactions with other stressors, and prospects for the future

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                Author and article information

                Contributors
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                Journal
                NeoBiota
                NB
                Pensoft Publishers
                1314-2488
                1619-0033
                August 14 2023
                August 14 2023
                : 87
                : 73-102
                Article
                10.3897/neobiota.87.100355
                2ac6a723-552e-4351-8029-a1dddbb3c69b
                © 2023

                https://creativecommons.org/share-your-work/public-domain/cc0/

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