Resource polymorphism in European whitefish: Analysis of fatty acid profiles provides more detailed evidence than traditional methods alone
Resource polymorphism—whereby ancestral generalist populations give rise to several specialised morphs along a resource gradient—is common where species colonise newly formed ecosystems. This phenomenon is particularly well documented in freshwater fish populations inhabiting postglacial lakes forme...
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ftpubmed:oai:pubmedcentral.nih.gov:6701781 2023-05-15T16:12:09+02:00 Resource polymorphism in European whitefish: Analysis of fatty acid profiles provides more detailed evidence than traditional methods alone Thomas, Stephen M. Kainz, Martin J. Amundsen, Per-Arne Hayden, Brian Taipale, Sami J. Kahilainen, Kimmo K. 2019-08-20 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6701781/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31430331 https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0221338 en eng Public Library of Science http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6701781/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31430331 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0221338 © 2019 Thomas et al http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. CC-BY Research Article Text 2019 ftpubmed https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0221338 2019-09-08T00:35:02Z Resource polymorphism—whereby ancestral generalist populations give rise to several specialised morphs along a resource gradient—is common where species colonise newly formed ecosystems. This phenomenon is particularly well documented in freshwater fish populations inhabiting postglacial lakes formed at the end of the last ice age. However, knowledge on how such differential exploitation of resources across contrasting habitats might be reflected in the biochemical compositions of diverging populations is still limited, though such patterns might be expected. Here, we aimed to assess how fatty acids (FA)—an important biochemical component of animal tissues—diverged across a polymorphic complex of European whitefish (Coregonus lavaretus) and their closely related monomorphic specialist congener vendace (Coregonus albula) inhabiting a series of six subarctic lakes in northern Fennoscandia. We also explored patterns of FA composition in whitefish’s predators and invertebrate prey to assess how divergence in trophic ecology between whitefish morphs would relate to biochemical profiles of their key food web associates. Lastly, we assessed how information on trophic divergence provided by differential FA composition compared to evidence of resource polymorphism retrieved from more classical stomach content and stable isotopic (δ(13)C, δ(15)N) information. Examination of stomach contents provided high-resolution information on recently consumed prey, whereas stable isotopes indicated broad-scale patterns of benthic-pelagic resource use differentiation at different trophic levels. Linear discriminant analysis based on FA composition was substantially more successful in identifying whitefish morphs and their congener vendace as distinct groupings when compared to the other two methods. Three major FA (myristic acid, stearic acid, and eicosadienoic acid) proved particularly informative, both in delineating coregonid groups, and identifying patterns of pelagic-benthic feeding throughout the wider food web. Myristic acid ... Text Fennoscandia Subarctic PubMed Central (PMC) PLOS ONE 14 8 e0221338 |
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Research Article Thomas, Stephen M. Kainz, Martin J. Amundsen, Per-Arne Hayden, Brian Taipale, Sami J. Kahilainen, Kimmo K. Resource polymorphism in European whitefish: Analysis of fatty acid profiles provides more detailed evidence than traditional methods alone |
topic_facet |
Research Article |
description |
Resource polymorphism—whereby ancestral generalist populations give rise to several specialised morphs along a resource gradient—is common where species colonise newly formed ecosystems. This phenomenon is particularly well documented in freshwater fish populations inhabiting postglacial lakes formed at the end of the last ice age. However, knowledge on how such differential exploitation of resources across contrasting habitats might be reflected in the biochemical compositions of diverging populations is still limited, though such patterns might be expected. Here, we aimed to assess how fatty acids (FA)—an important biochemical component of animal tissues—diverged across a polymorphic complex of European whitefish (Coregonus lavaretus) and their closely related monomorphic specialist congener vendace (Coregonus albula) inhabiting a series of six subarctic lakes in northern Fennoscandia. We also explored patterns of FA composition in whitefish’s predators and invertebrate prey to assess how divergence in trophic ecology between whitefish morphs would relate to biochemical profiles of their key food web associates. Lastly, we assessed how information on trophic divergence provided by differential FA composition compared to evidence of resource polymorphism retrieved from more classical stomach content and stable isotopic (δ(13)C, δ(15)N) information. Examination of stomach contents provided high-resolution information on recently consumed prey, whereas stable isotopes indicated broad-scale patterns of benthic-pelagic resource use differentiation at different trophic levels. Linear discriminant analysis based on FA composition was substantially more successful in identifying whitefish morphs and their congener vendace as distinct groupings when compared to the other two methods. Three major FA (myristic acid, stearic acid, and eicosadienoic acid) proved particularly informative, both in delineating coregonid groups, and identifying patterns of pelagic-benthic feeding throughout the wider food web. Myristic acid ... |
format |
Text |
author |
Thomas, Stephen M. Kainz, Martin J. Amundsen, Per-Arne Hayden, Brian Taipale, Sami J. Kahilainen, Kimmo K. |
author_facet |
Thomas, Stephen M. Kainz, Martin J. Amundsen, Per-Arne Hayden, Brian Taipale, Sami J. Kahilainen, Kimmo K. |
author_sort |
Thomas, Stephen M. |
title |
Resource polymorphism in European whitefish: Analysis of fatty acid profiles provides more detailed evidence than traditional methods alone |
title_short |
Resource polymorphism in European whitefish: Analysis of fatty acid profiles provides more detailed evidence than traditional methods alone |
title_full |
Resource polymorphism in European whitefish: Analysis of fatty acid profiles provides more detailed evidence than traditional methods alone |
title_fullStr |
Resource polymorphism in European whitefish: Analysis of fatty acid profiles provides more detailed evidence than traditional methods alone |
title_full_unstemmed |
Resource polymorphism in European whitefish: Analysis of fatty acid profiles provides more detailed evidence than traditional methods alone |
title_sort |
resource polymorphism in european whitefish: analysis of fatty acid profiles provides more detailed evidence than traditional methods alone |
publisher |
Public Library of Science |
publishDate |
2019 |
url |
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6701781/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31430331 https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0221338 |
genre |
Fennoscandia Subarctic |
genre_facet |
Fennoscandia Subarctic |
op_relation |
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6701781/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31430331 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0221338 |
op_rights |
© 2019 Thomas et al http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. |
op_rightsnorm |
CC-BY |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0221338 |
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PLOS ONE |
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14 |
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8 |
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