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Abstract

1. Long-term human-induced disturbances such as acidification and algal invasions, and management practices such as liming, are known to alter community structure and biodiversity of north temperate lakes. We assessed if they impacted on the trophic ecology and production of apex consumers (i.e. fish) and the overall food-chain length (FCL) of boreal lake ecosystems, and if these functional responses were consistent with the biodiversity changes. We hypothesise that fish production and FCL decrease with decreasing species biodiversity of lake communities, and that long-term environmental perturbations will alter the relative reliance of fish on littoral versus pelagic trophic pathways and their ontogenetic changes in trophic position (TP).2. We analysed long-term data and stable isotopes of multiple organismal groups - phytoplankton, zooplankton, littoral and sub-littoral/profundal macroinvertebrates, and fish - collected from small boreal lakes that have been subjected to acidification, lime application and/or algal invasion by Gonyostomum semen. Species biodiversity, FCL and fish production (i.e. growth and catch-per-uniteffort) were compared among three lake categories, i.e. acidic, limed and circumneutral (reference) lakes, within each three lakes were selected. Fish TP and their relative littoral versus pelagic reliance were estimated based on stable nitrogen and carbon isotopes respectively.3. Gonyostomum contributed to 77-98% phytoplankton biovolume in acidic lakes,

Keywords

acidification; biodieversity; fish; food webs; invasions; liming; stable isotopes

Published in

Freshwater Biology
2017, volume: 62, number: 4, pages: 792-806

SLU Authors

Global goals (SDG)

SDG15 Life on land

UKÄ Subject classification

Ecology

Publication identifier

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/fwb.12902

Permanent link to this page (URI)

https://res.slu.se/id/publ/88295