A freshwater predator hit twice by the effects of warming across trophic levels

Tomas Jonsson () and Malin Setzer
Additional contact information
Tomas Jonsson: Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
Malin Setzer: Ecological Modelling Group, Systems Biology Research Centre, Skövde University

Nature Communications, 2015, vol. 6, issue 1, 1-9

Abstract: Abstract Many ecological responses to climate change have been documented. However, due to indirect effects, some responses can be complex and difficult to predict. For example, our understanding of effects on consumers involving responses on several trophic levels is limited. Here, combining the knowledge of trophic interactions in the EU’s fourth largest lake with long-term climate and catch data, we analyse potential drivers of change in this system’s apex predator. We show that warm winters correlate with later poor catches of great Arctic charr (Salvelinus umbla), and that in recent years predator–prey cycles involving this species have disappeared. The likely mechanisms are trophic mismatches directly and indirectly affecting two stages of charr, the fry and the juveniles, respectively. Our study illustrates how a long-lived consumer may be subjected to double jeopardy from the effects of warming across trophic levels, and that a food web approach can aid in disentangling the chain of mechanisms responsible.

Date: 2015
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms6992 Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:6:y:2015:i:1:d:10.1038_ncomms6992

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/ncomms6992

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().