Perch and pike recruitment in coastal bays limited by stickleback predation and environmental forcing

Donadi, Serena; Bergström, Lena; Berglund, Johnny; Anette, Bäck; Mikkola, Roosa; Saarinen, A.; Bergström, Ulf

doi:10.1016/j.ecss.2020.107052

Cited by 21 publications

(23 citation statements)

References 47 publications

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“…In addition, eutrophicationdriven improvements in food availability have been linked to greater fecundity as well as greater juvenile survival and growth rates (Candolin et al, 2014;Candolin, 2019;Saarinen and Candolin, 2020). However, the negative impact of decadal eutrophication on habitat-forming macrophytes, such as bladderwrack (Fucus vesiculosus) (Bergström et al, 2013), may indirectly increase stickleback mortality rates, as they normally provide sticklebacks with refuge from predators (Gagnon et al, 2017;Donadi et al, 2020). In addition, the increased turbidity may have resulted in a reduced ability to detect both predators and prey (Candolin, 2019).…”

Section: Eutrophicationmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Increases of opportunistic species in response to ecosystem change: the case of the Baltic Sea three-spined stickleback

Olin

Olsson

Eklöf

et al. 2022

ICES Journal of Marine Science

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Under rapid environmental change, opportunistic species may exhibit dramatic increases in response to the altered conditions, and can in turn have large impacts on the ecosystem. One such species is the three-spined stickleback (Gasterosteus aculeatus), which has shown substantial increases in several aquatic systems in recent decades. Here, we review the population development of the stickleback in the Baltic Sea, a large brackish water ecosystem subject to rapid environmental change. Current evidence points to predatory release being the central driver of the population increases observed in some areas, while both eutrophication and climate change have likely contributed to creating more favourable conditions for the stickleback. The increasing stickleback densities have had profound effects on coastal ecosystem function by impairing the recruitment of piscivorous fish and enhancing the effects of eutrophication through promoting the production of filamentous algae. The increase poses a challenge for both environmental management and fisheries, where a substantial interest from the pelagic fisheries fleet in exploiting the species calls for urgent attention. While significant knowledge gaps remain, we suggest that the case of the Baltic Sea stickleback increase provides generalisable lessons of value for understanding and managing other coastal ecosystems under rapid change.

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Section: Eutrophicationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Interactions with stickleback should be explicitly considered when designing future measures to improve the status of coastal piscivorous fish. For example, limiting dredging and canalisation of currently enclosed bays may protect piscivorous fish spawning habitat from migrating sticklebacks (Donadi et al, 2020).…”

Section: Implications For Managementmentioning

confidence: 99%

Increases of opportunistic species in response to ecosystem change: the case of the Baltic Sea three-spined stickleback

Olin

Olsson

Eklöf

et al. 2022

ICES Journal of Marine Science

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“…During the autumn, when western Baltic brackish water perch are returning to their natal streams, influxes of high-salinity sea water exceeding their physiological tolerance can lead to mass mortality among perch (Berg, 2012). There is also an increasing threat from cormorant predation during the winter, when the brackish water perch are congregating (Salmi et al, 2014; Veneranta et al, 2020) and in some areas of the Baltic Sea there is egg predation from three spined sticklebacks (Donadi et al, 2020). These pressures, combined with unregulated commercial and leisure harvesting during the summer, when the brackish water perch are in the marine environment, has led to greatly fluctuating population sizes of brackish water perch (Lindvig & Ebert, 2012).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Genomic differentiation among European perch in the western Baltic Sea reflects colonisation history and local adaptation

Skovrind

Pacheco

Christensen

et al. 2022

Preprint

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Environmental variation across the distribution of wild species can lead to local adaptations. The Baltic Sea was formed when the Fenno-Scandian ice sheet retreated around 12 thousand years ago, creating a new brackish water habitat colonised by both marine and freshwater fish species. The European perch (Perca fluviatilis) is a predatory freshwater fish with a large geographical distribution across Eurasia, where it inhabits a wide range of environmental niches. In the Baltic Sea region it has even developed a specialised brackish water phenotype that can tolerate environmental salinity levels, which are lethal to the ancestral freshwater phenotype. However, very little is known about the colonisation history and underlying genomic mechanisms facilitating the colonisation and adaptation of perch to the Baltic Sea. Here, we use Genotyping-By-Sequencing data from six freshwater and six brackish water localities to disclose the evolutionary relationship between the freshwater and brackish water phenotype. Our results show that the brackish water perch phenotype occurs in multiple distinct genetic clusters. We find that gene flow between brackish water phenotypes with full access to the sea likely led to lower levels of differentiation and higher diversity than in freshwater phenotypes. Selection analyses suggest that genomic adaptation played a role in the colonisation of the Baltic Sea and that the top three regions under selection harbour salinity tolerance genes. We also find a link between the historic salinity of the Baltic Sea and the demographic history of the brackish water phenotypes and go on to discuss the implications of our findings for management of brackish water perch in the western Baltic sea.

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“…However, a large partition of the pelagic zooplankton production remains unutilized by the clupeids, leaving an open niche that could potentially be occupied 12 . In parallel to the increase in clupeid abundance, research highlighted an exponential increase in another pelagic mesopredator, the three-spined stickleback ( Gasterosteus aculeatus, hereafter ‘stickleback’) over the last two decades 13 , 14 that caused a trophic cascade in coastal spawning areas, down to the algal level 15 , 16 . Although the dramatic increase of stickleback was triggered by alterations in the dominance of predators and prey in coastal areas 17 , the open pelagic habitat, where stickleback are assumed to complete a substantial part of their life cycle 13 , 17 , also needs to offer enough resources to support the growing population.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Niche partitioning between planktivorous fish in the pelagic Baltic Sea assessed by DNA metabarcoding, qPCR and microscopy

Novotny

Jan

Dierking

et al. 2022

Sci Rep

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Marine communities undergo rapid changes related to human-induced ecosystem pressures. The Baltic Sea pelagic food web has experienced several regime shifts during the past century, resulting in a system where competition between the dominant planktivorous mesopredatory clupeid fish species herring (Clupea harengus) and sprat (Sprattus sprattus) and the rapidly increasing stickleback (Gasterosteus aculeatus) population is assumed to be high. Here, we investigate diet overlap between these three planktivorous fishes in the Baltic Sea, utilizing DNA metabarcoding on the 18S rRNA gene and the COI gene, targeted qPCR, and microscopy. Our results show niche differentiation between clupeids and stickleback, and highlight that rotifers play an important role in this pattern, as a resource that is not being used by the clupeids nor by other zooplankton in spring. We further show that all the diet assessment methods used in this study are consistent, but also that DNA metabarcoding describes the plankton-fish link at the highest taxonomic resolution. This study suggests that rotifers and other understudied soft-bodied prey may have an important function in the pelagic food web and that the growing population of pelagic stickleback may be supported by the open feeding niche offered by the rotifers.

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Perch and pike recruitment in coastal bays limited by stickleback predation and environmental forcing

Cited by 21 publications

References 47 publications

Increases of opportunistic species in response to ecosystem change: the case of the Baltic Sea three-spined stickleback

Increases of opportunistic species in response to ecosystem change: the case of the Baltic Sea three-spined stickleback

Genomic differentiation among European perch in the western Baltic Sea reflects colonisation history and local adaptation

Niche partitioning between planktivorous fish in the pelagic Baltic Sea assessed by DNA metabarcoding, qPCR and microscopy

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