Ecological speciation in a generalist consumer expands the trophic niche of a dominant predator
Ecological speciation – whereby an ancestral founder species diversifies to fill vacant niches – is a phenomenon characteristic of newly formed ecosystems. Despite such ubiquity, ecosystem-level effects of such divergence remain poorly understood. Here, we compared the trophic niche of European whit...
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ftpubmed:oai:pubmedcentral.nih.gov:5562900 2023-05-15T18:28:21+02:00 Ecological speciation in a generalist consumer expands the trophic niche of a dominant predator Thomas, Stephen M. Harrod, Chris Hayden, Brian Malinen, Tommi Kahilainen, Kimmo K. 2017-08-18 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5562900/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28821736 https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-017-08263-9 en eng Nature Publishing Group UK http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5562900/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28821736 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-017-08263-9 © The Author(s) 2017 Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. CC-BY Article Text 2017 ftpubmed https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-017-08263-9 2017-08-27T00:10:25Z Ecological speciation – whereby an ancestral founder species diversifies to fill vacant niches – is a phenomenon characteristic of newly formed ecosystems. Despite such ubiquity, ecosystem-level effects of such divergence remain poorly understood. Here, we compared the trophic niche of European whitefish (Coregonus lavaretus) and their predators in a series of contrasting subarctic lakes where this species had either diversified into four ecomorphologically distinct morphs or instead formed monomorphic populations. We found that the trophic niche of whitefish was almost three times larger in the polymorphic than in the monomorphic lakes, due to an increase in intraspecific specialisation. This trophic niche expansion was mirrored in brown trout (Salmo trutta), a major predator of whitefish. This represents amongst the first evidence for ecological speciation directly altering the trophic niche of a predator. We suggest such mechanisms may be a common and important – though presently overlooked – factor regulating trophic interactions in diverse ecosystems globally. Text Subarctic PubMed Central (PMC) Scientific Reports 7 1 |
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Article Thomas, Stephen M. Harrod, Chris Hayden, Brian Malinen, Tommi Kahilainen, Kimmo K. Ecological speciation in a generalist consumer expands the trophic niche of a dominant predator |
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Article |
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Ecological speciation – whereby an ancestral founder species diversifies to fill vacant niches – is a phenomenon characteristic of newly formed ecosystems. Despite such ubiquity, ecosystem-level effects of such divergence remain poorly understood. Here, we compared the trophic niche of European whitefish (Coregonus lavaretus) and their predators in a series of contrasting subarctic lakes where this species had either diversified into four ecomorphologically distinct morphs or instead formed monomorphic populations. We found that the trophic niche of whitefish was almost three times larger in the polymorphic than in the monomorphic lakes, due to an increase in intraspecific specialisation. This trophic niche expansion was mirrored in brown trout (Salmo trutta), a major predator of whitefish. This represents amongst the first evidence for ecological speciation directly altering the trophic niche of a predator. We suggest such mechanisms may be a common and important – though presently overlooked – factor regulating trophic interactions in diverse ecosystems globally. |
format |
Text |
author |
Thomas, Stephen M. Harrod, Chris Hayden, Brian Malinen, Tommi Kahilainen, Kimmo K. |
author_facet |
Thomas, Stephen M. Harrod, Chris Hayden, Brian Malinen, Tommi Kahilainen, Kimmo K. |
author_sort |
Thomas, Stephen M. |
title |
Ecological speciation in a generalist consumer expands the trophic niche of a dominant predator |
title_short |
Ecological speciation in a generalist consumer expands the trophic niche of a dominant predator |
title_full |
Ecological speciation in a generalist consumer expands the trophic niche of a dominant predator |
title_fullStr |
Ecological speciation in a generalist consumer expands the trophic niche of a dominant predator |
title_full_unstemmed |
Ecological speciation in a generalist consumer expands the trophic niche of a dominant predator |
title_sort |
ecological speciation in a generalist consumer expands the trophic niche of a dominant predator |
publisher |
Nature Publishing Group UK |
publishDate |
2017 |
url |
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5562900/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28821736 https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-017-08263-9 |
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Subarctic |
genre_facet |
Subarctic |
op_relation |
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5562900/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28821736 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-017-08263-9 |
op_rights |
© The Author(s) 2017 Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. |
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CC-BY |
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https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-017-08263-9 |
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Scientific Reports |
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