| 1. |
- Bartels, Pia, et al.
(författare)
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Dissolved Organic Carbon Reduces Habitat Coupling by Top Predators in Lake Ecosystems
- 2016
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Ingår i: Ecosystems (New York. Print). - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 1432-9840 .- 1435-0629. ; 19, s. 955-967
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Increasing input of terrestrial dissolved organic carbon (DOC) has been identified as a widespread environmental phenomenon in many aquatic ecosystems. Terrestrial DOC influences basal trophic levels: it can subsidize pelagic bacterial production and impede benthic primary production via light attenuation. However, little is known about the impacts of elevated DOC concentrations on higher trophic levels, especially on top consumers. Here, we used Eurasian perch (Perca fluviatilis) to investigate the effects of increasing DOC concentrations on top predator populations. We applied stable isotope analysis and geometric morphometrics to estimate long-term resource and habitat utilization of perch. Habitat coupling, the ability to exploit littoral and pelagic resources, strongly decreased with increasing DOC concentrations due to a shift toward feeding predominantly on pelagic resources. Simultaneously, resource use and body morphology became increasingly alike for littoral and pelagic perch populations with increasing DOC, suggesting more intense competition in lakes with high DOC. Eye size of perch increased with increasing DOC concentrations, likely as a result of deteriorating visual conditions, suggesting a sensory response to environmental change. Increasing input of DOC to aquatic ecosystems is a common result of environmental change and might affect top predator populations in multiple and complex ways.
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| 2. |
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| 3. |
- Bartels, Pia, et al.
(författare)
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Water transparency drives intra-population divergence in Eurasian perch (Perca fluviatilis)
- 2012
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Ingår i: PLOS ONE. - San Francisco : Public Library of Science (PLoS). - 1932-6203. ; 7:8
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Trait combinations that lead to a higher efficiency in resource utilization are important drivers of divergent natural selection and adaptive radiation. However, variation in environmental features might constrain foraging in complex ways and therefore impede the exploitation of critical resources. We tested the effect of water transparency on intra-population divergence in morphology of Eurasian perch (Perca fluviatilis) across seven lakes in central Sweden. Morphological divergence between near-shore littoral and open-water pelagic perch substantially increased with increasing water transparency. Reliance on littoral resources increased strongly with increasing water transparency in littoral populations, whereas littoral reliance was not affected by water transparency in pelagic populations. Despite the similar reliance on pelagic resources in pelagic populations along the water transparency gradient, the utilization of particular pelagic prey items differed with variation in water transparency in pelagic populations. Pelagic perch utilized cladocerans in lakes with high water transparency and copepods in lakes with low water transparency. We suggest that under impaired visual conditions low utilization of littoral resources by littoral perch and utilization of evasive copepods by pelagic perch may lead to changes in morphology. Our findings indicate that visual conditions can affect population divergence in predator populations through their effects on resource utilization.
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| 4. |
- Berggren, Hanna
(författare)
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Consequences of Environmental Variation for Fish and Their Skin Associated Microbial Communities
- 2021
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Environmental conditions that vary in space and time influence the distribution, abundance, diversity and evolution of individuals, populations, species and communities. This thesis explores how environmental variation affects diversity at different levels of biological organization, and across a wide range of spatiotemporal scales, by studying fish and their associated microbiomes. The specific aims were to investigate i) effects of coarse- and fine-scale environmental variation for the performance of fish populations and individuals, and ii) ecological drivers impacting the structure and dynamics of microbial communities associated with fish hosts.For the first aim, I studied effects of environmental variation both within and between local habitats, by comparing populations of spawning migrating pike and monitor sun-basking behaviour of carp individuals. Results revealed that natal spawning site fidelity can promote evolution of local adaptations and population differentiation on relatively fine spatial scales in relation to the species dispersal capacity. I also demonstrated that fish can actively thermo-regulate and attain body temperatures in excess of the surrounding water by sun-basking, and that this translates into faster growth. Homing and sun-basking behaviour thus are important drivers of phenotypic diversity among and within populations and can also - as it turned out - influence the microbial communities associated with fish skin.For the second aim, I used a mixture of observational and experimental approaches to characterize and identify sources of variation in microbial communities associated with fish skin of perch, roach and carp. An important finding was that fish skin microbiomes are highly dynamic biodiversity hotspots. Results further suggested that variation in the assembly, composition, spatial structure, and temporal shifts of these microbiomes are influenced by stochastic events in combination with ecological filtering imposed by environment and host phenotype, most notably behaviour. A key conclusion that emerges from this thesis is that diversity at one level of biological organisation seems to support and increase diversity at a higher hierarchical level of organisation. My thesis thus adds to the knowledge, and contribute new understanding and insight into, how environmental heterogeneity and the complex interplay between different species and hierarchical levels generate and maintain biodiversity.
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| 5. |
- Bolnick, Daniel, et al.
(författare)
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Comparative support for the niche variation hypothesis that more generalized populations also are more heterogeneous
- 2007
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Ingår i: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. - : Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. - 0027-8424 .- 1091-6490. ; 104:24, s. 10075-10079
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- There is extensive evidence that some species of ecological generalists, which use a wide diversity of resources, are in fact heterogeneous collections of relatively specialized individuals. This within-population variation, or "individual specialization," is a key requirement for frequency-dependent interactions that may drive a variety of types of evolutionary diversification and may influence the population dynamics and ecological interactions of species. Consequently, it is important to understand when individual specialization is likely to be strong or weak. The niche variation hypothesis (NVH) suggests that populations tend to become more generalized when they are released from interspecific competition. This niche expansion was proposed to arise via increased variation among individuals rather than increased individual niche breadth. Consequently, we expect ecological generalists to exhibit stronger individual specialization, but this correlation has been repeatedly rejected by empiricists. The drawback with previous empirical tests of the NVH is that they use morphological variation as a proxy for niche variation, ignoring the role of behavior and complex phenotype-function relationships. Here, we used diet data to directly estimate niche variation among individuals. Consistent with the NVH, we show that more generalized populations also exhibit more niche variation. This trend is quite general, appearing in all five case studies examined: three-spine stickleback, Eurasian perch, Anolis lizards, intertidal gastropods, and a community of neotropical frogs. Our results suggest that generalist populations may tend to be more ecologically variable. Whether this translates into greater genetic variation, evolvability, or ecological stability remains to be determined.
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| 6. |
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| 7. |
- Bolnick, D.I., et al.
(författare)
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Individuals’ diet diversity influences gut microbial diversity in two freshwater fish (threespine stickleback and Eurasian perch)
- 2014
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Ingår i: Ecology Letters. - : Wiley. - 1461-023X .- 1461-0248. ; 17:8, s. 979-987
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Vertebrates' diets profoundly influence the composition of symbiotic gut microbial communities. Studies documenting diet-microbiota associations typically focus on univariate or categorical diet variables. However, in nature individuals often consume diverse combinations of foods. If diet components act independently, each providing distinct microbial colonists or nutrients, we expect a positive relationship between diet diversity and microbial diversity. We tested this prediction within each of two fish species (stickleback and perch), in which individuals vary in their propensity to eat littoral or pelagic invertebrates or mixtures of both prey. Unexpectedly, in most cases individuals with more generalised diets had less diverse microbiota than dietary specialists, in both natural and laboratory populations. This negative association between diet diversity and microbial diversity was small but significant, and most apparent after accounting for complex interactions between sex, size and diet. Our results suggest that multiple diet components can interact non-additively to influence gut microbial diversity.
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| 8. |
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| 9. |
- Boughman, Janette W., et al.
(författare)
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Synergistic selection between ecological niche and mate preference primes diversification
- 2017
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Ingår i: Evolution. - : WILEY-BLACKWELL. - 0014-3820 .- 1558-5646. ; 71:1, s. 6-22
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The ecological niche and mate preferences have independently been shown to be important for the process of speciation. Here, we articulate a novel mechanism by which ecological niche use and mate preference can be linked to promote speciation. The degree to which individual niches are narrow and clustered affects the strength of divergent natural selection and population splitting. Similarly, the degree to which individual mate preferences are narrow and clustered affects the strength of divergent sexual selection and assortative mating between diverging forms. This novel perspective is inspired by the literature on ecological niches; it also explores mate preferences and how they may contribute to speciation. Unlike much comparative work, we do not search for evolutionary patterns using proxies for adaptation and sexual selection, but rather we elucidate how ideas from niche theory relate to mate preference, and how this relationship can foster speciation. Recognizing that individual and population niches are conceptually and ecologically linked to individual and population mate preference functions will significantly increase our understanding of rapid evolutionary diversification in nature. It has potential to help solve the difficult challenge of testing the role of sexual selection in the speciation process. We also identify ecological factors that are likely to affect individual niche and individual mate preference in synergistic ways and as a consequence to promote speciation. The ecological niche an individual occupies can directly affect its mate preference. Clusters of individuals with narrow, differentiated niches are likely to have narrow, differentiated mate preference functions. Our approach integrates ecological and sexual selection research to further our understanding of diversification processes. Such integration may be necessary for progress because these processes seem inextricably linked in the natural world.
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| 10. |
- DeAngelis, Donald L., et al.
(författare)
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The Effect of Travel Loss on Evolutionarily Stable Distributions of Populations in Space
- 2011
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Ingår i: American Naturalist. - : University of Chicago Press. - 0003-0147 .- 1537-5323. ; 178:1, s. 15-29
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- A key assumption of the ideal free distribution (IFD) is that there are no costs in moving between habitat patches. However, because many populations exhibit more or less continuous population movement between patches and traveling cost is a frequent factor, it is important to determine the effects of costs on expected population movement patterns and spatial distributions. We consider a food chain (tritrophic or bitrophic) in which one species moves between patches, with energy cost or mortality risk in movement. In the two-patch case, assuming forced movement in one direction, an evolutionarily stable strategy requires bidirectional movement, even if costs during movement are high. In the N-patch case, assuming that at least one patch is linked bidirectionally to all other patches, optimal movement rates can lead to source-sink dynamics where patches with negative growth rates are maintained by other patches with positive growth rates. As well, dispersal between patches is not balanced (even in the two-patch case), leading to a deviation from the IFD. Our results indicate that cost-associated forced movement can have important consequences for spatial metapopulation dynamics. Relevance to marine reserve design and the study of stream communities subject to drift is discussed.
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