Interaction between prey availability and feeding behaviour of age-1 and age-2 perch (Perca fluviatilis L.) in a biomanipulated lake (Bautzen Reservoir, Germany)

Dörner, Hendrik; Schultz, Heinz; Mehner, Thomas; Benndorf, Jürgen

doi:10.1016/s0075-9511(01)80042-6

Cited by 11 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 25 publications

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“…This is corroborated by the findings of previous studies on perch in the Bautzen Reservoir where it was found that several year classes coexisted (Dörner, 2002). Perch became piscivorous very early in their life span (Mehner et al ., 1996 a ; Dörner et al ., 2001). Age ≥1 year perch fed size‐ and species‐selectively on small perch and pikeperch and age 0 year percid abundance was controlled by piscivorous perch and pikeperch.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Size‐dependent predator–prey relationships between perch and their fish prey

Dörner

Wagner

2003

Journal of Fish Biology

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Size-dependent interactions between piscivorous perch Perca fluviatilis (age !1 year) and their fish prey age 0 year perch, pikeperch Sander lucioperca and roach Rutilus rutilus in the biomanipulated Bautzen Reservoir indicated that the highest ratio of prey total length (L T ) to predator L T was 59%. Perch L T and prey fish L T were positively and linearly related. Perch L T was strongly related with both gape width and gape height. Within the range 80´-110 mm L T , the gape height of perch exceeded gape width, while beginning at 120 mm L T the gape width exceeded gape height. The minimum, maximum and mean prey L T and prey body depths of all three prey species increased with increasing predator size, but the increases in mean sizes of perch and pikeperch as prey were less than that of roach. The low limit of the 'predation window' observed in this study coupled with results of previous studies on perch in the Bautzen Reservoir indicated that perch had a major impact on the population dynamics of both perch and pikeperch.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Size‐dependent predator–prey relationships between perch and their fish prey

Dörner

Wagner

2003

Journal of Fish Biology

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“…A further complication arises from the fact that most piscivorous fish are actually generalists whose diets not only include fish but also invertebrates. Piscivores, such as largemouth bass, zander, pike, and perch, undergo ontogenetic diet shifts from zooplanktivory and benthivory as young of year and juveniles to facultative piscivory as adults [199,200,201,202,203,204,205]. Therefore, instead of enhancing zooplankton via the trophic cascade, the addition of piscivorous fish to lakes may actually lead to increased predation pressure on zooplankton, particularly in years of high reproductive success [206].…”

Section: Why Is Phytoplankton Biomass Not Affected By the Presence Ofmentioning

confidence: 99%

Piscivores, Trophic Cascades, and Lake Management

Drenner

Hambright

2002

The Scientific World JOURNAL

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The concept of cascading trophic interactions predicts that an increase in piscivore biomass in lakes will result in decreased planktivorous fish biomass, increased herbivorous zooplankton biomass, and decreased phytoplankton biomass. Though often accepted as a paradigm in the ecological literature and adopted by lake managers as a basis for lake management strategies, the trophic cascading interactions hypothesis has not received the unequivocal support (in the form of rigorous experimental testing) that might be expected of a paradigm. Here we review field experiments and surveys, testing the hypothesis that effects of increasing piscivore biomass will cascade down through the food web yielding a decline in phytoplankton biomass. We found 39 studies in the scientific literature examining piscivore effects on phytoplankton biomass. Of the studies, 22 were confounded by supplemental manipulations (e.g., simultaneous reduction of nutrients or removal of planktivores) and could not be used to assess piscivore effects. Of the 17 nonconfounded studies, most did not find piscivore effects on phytoplankton biomass and therefore did not support the trophic cascading interactions hypothesis. However, the trophic cascading interactions hypothesis also predicts that lake systems containing piscivores will have lower phytoplankton biomass for any given phosphorus concentration. Based on regression analyses of chlorophyll�total phosphorus relationships in the 17 nonconfounded piscivore studies, this aspect of the trophic cascading interactions hypothesis was supported. The slope of the chlorophyll vs. total phosphorus regression was lower in lakes with planktivores and piscivores compared with lakes containing only planktivores but no piscivores. We hypothesize that this slope can be used as an indicator of “functional piscivory” and that communities with extremes of functional piscivory (zero and very high) represent classical 3- and 4-trophic level food webs.

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“…However, in a subset of 67 north-German lakes, all three predators co-occurred with abundant populations in only two lakes (see Diekmann et al 2005;Mehner et al 2005) such that the experimental pikeperch introduction allowed to test for the effects of an artificially intensified competition among the three native predators. Perch can be classified as an ontogenetic trophic generalist switching frequently between piscivorous, zooplanktivorous and benthivorous feeding styles even as adult fish (Dörner et al 2001;Matena 1998;Persson and Greenberg 1990). In contrast, pike and pikeperch are piscivorous specialists.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Dietary niche partitioning in a piscivorous fish guild in response to stocking of an additional competitor – The role of diet specialisation

Schulze

Dörner

Baade³

et al. 2012

Limnologica

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a b s t r a c tSpecies belonging to the same ecological guild can coexist only if there are differences in their responses to limiting resources. Thus, competitor introductions may modify the niches of the resident competitors, but empirical studies are rare. The extent of niche modification might further depend on the species' trophic specialisation along the specialists-to-generalists axis. In this study, we performed a semi-natural experiment by introducing a trophically specialised piscivorous fish (pikeperch) to the resident predator guild of a trophic generalist (perch) and a trophic specialist (pike) in a temperate freshwater lake. Individual diet data were used to calculate total niche hypervolume and inter-and intraspecific dietary niche overlap to evaluate strength of competitive interactions before and after pikeperch introduction. In both pike and perch, there was a moderate niche compression in response to pikeperch stocking. Furthermore, whereas perch diet hypervolume did not overlap at all with that of pikeperch, the intersection of niche space between the two trophic specialists was highly asymmetrical in favour of pike due to its less specialised diet composition in comparison with pikeperch. The intraspecific dietary niche overlap between perch size classes reflected an enhanced partitioning, whereas that of pike size classes was found almost unchanged in response to pikeperch stocking. These empirical results corroborate that competitive interactions and the degree of specialisation may strongly shape the success of introductions of top-predators in freshwater ecosystems. The most specialised species may persist only if the competitors belong rather to the generalists along the specialisation continuum.

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Interaction between prey availability and feeding behaviour of age-1 and age-2 perch (Perca fluviatilis L.) in a biomanipulated lake (Bautzen Reservoir, Germany)

Cited by 11 publications

References 25 publications

Size‐dependent predator–prey relationships between perch and their fish prey

Size‐dependent predator–prey relationships between perch and their fish prey

Piscivores, Trophic Cascades, and Lake Management

Dietary niche partitioning in a piscivorous fish guild in response to stocking of an additional competitor – The role of diet specialisation

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