Life-history strategies of pike in a high-altitude loch in Scotland

• Main Author: Treasurer, Jim
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: 1998
• Subjects: Ecology; Biology; Limnology; Diets; Feeding behaviour; Freshwater fish; Lakes; Life history; Sexual reproduction; Stomach content; Scotland; Loch Callater; Subarctic
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/1834/22200

Pike, Esox lucius, are present in Loch Callater at their highest altitude and most extreme habitat in the British Isles, with subarctic winter conditions and extended winter ice-cover. The response of pike in this environment is slower growth, due to a shorter growing season and the low availability of forage fish, giving the poorest reported length-at-age for pike in the British Isles. All pike were mature or had spawned in the same year, with gravid ovaries in April and normal recovering ovaries in June-July. As in other lochs with few prey fishes, the larger pike ate small items such as invertebrates.