Contributions of winter foraging to the annual growth of thermally dissimilar fish species
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PRIMARY RESEARCH PAPER
Contributions of winter foraging to the annual growth of thermally dissimilar fish species Benjamin D. Block
. Jason D. Stockwell . J. Ellen Marsden
Received: 19 April 2020 / Revised: 21 September 2020 / Accepted: 29 September 2020 Ó Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020
Abstract The seasonal energy dynamics of temperate fishes will likely be affected by climate change, especially during the winter. Few studies, however, have focused on winter. Fishes are more active in winter than previously thought, thus, an inquiry into the energetic contributions of winter foraging to the annual growth of fishes is needed given expected changes in winter conditions. We used stomach content data, total lipid analyses, and bioenergetics modeling to assess the effects of winter foraging on three species in Lake Champlain, Vermont, USA. We compared species in two thermal guilds, the coolwater species yellow perch (Perca flavescens) and two warm-water species, pumpkinseed (Lepomis gibbosus) and bluegill (Lepomis macrochirus). Our results indicate that winter energy dynamics likely depend on the thermal preference of individual fish species – the cool-water species foraged in all seasons whereas the two warm-water species foraged only in the open-
Handling editor: Antti P. Eloranta
Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (https://doi.org/10.1007/s10750-020-04428-2) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. B. D. Block J. D. Stockwell J. E. Marsden (&) Rubenstein Ecosystem Science Laboratory, University of Vermont, 3 College Street, Burlington, VT, USA e-mail: [email protected]
water seasons. In addition, winter foraging provided sufficient energy for overwinter growth in cool-water species but not in warm-water species. Climate change will affect the seasonal energy dynamics that these species have evolved to survive winter conditions in temperate lakes. Thus, we expect climate change to affect individual survival and reproductive success. Keywords Under ice sampling Seasonality Lipids Bioenergetics modeling Diet
Introduction Fish are more active in winter than previously thought (Shuter et al., 2012). For example, fish actively forage in low water temperatures and under low light conditions (Eloranta et al., 2013; Hayden et al., 2013) and some species may consume large proportions of their yearly energy requirements during winter (Eckmann, 2004; Stockwell et al., 2014). In addition, fish that forage in winter may have seasonally dissimilar diets (Hayden et al., 2013; Anderson et al., 2016). Winter is, however, logistically challenging for fieldwork in temperate freshwater lakes, and consequently, the winter ecology of freshwater fishes has been understudied (Shuter et al., 2012; Fernandes & McMeans, 2019). We have limited knowledge of the relative importance of winter for
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Hydrobiologia
fish life history, population dynamics, and overall ecology even though winter conditions h
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