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Trophic dynamics of several fish species in lakes of a climatically sensitive region, the Hudson Bay Lowlands

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Abstract

Freshwater lakes in the Hudson Bay Lowlands (HBL) area of Ontario are expected to undergo considerable physical, chemical and biological changes related to climatic change; however, the nature of those changes is still very uncertain. As a first step to improve our understanding of fish communities within these subarctic lakes, we aimed to: (a) characterize trophic dynamics of several large-bodied species within three HBL lakes and (b) determine whether trophic dynamics of selected species in the HBL lakes differed from the same species in Southern Ontario lakes. We found that species-specific trophic position and littoral resource reliance varied significantly within and among the HBL lakes of differing biological communities, chemistry and morphometry. Although several significant differences were evident among lakes in the northern and southern regions, we did not find striking consistent differences in trophic dynamics. Based on observations of high variation in trophic position and/or littoral reliance, we can hypothesize that changes in food resources resulting from climatic change would have little impact on most of the large-bodied species.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the Ontario Ministry of the Environment through the Climate Change and Multiple Stressor Research Program at Laurentian University. Albert Chookomolin and Gilbert Chookomolin assisted with the field studies in the HBL. Lee Haslam and Jason Houle collected the fish samples from the HBL and Muskoka-Haliburton Lakes. Jeff Amos of MNR provided the fish community data for Spruce Lake. Matthew Bond and Cam McCauley from the Ministry of Natural Resources (MNR) along with numerous field and laboratory technicians from Trent University assisted with sample collection and processing for the Kawartha-Renfrew Lakes. We also thank three anonymous reviewers for their comments that helped to improve our paper.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Trent University, 1600 West Bank Drive, Peterborough, ON, K9J 8B7, Canada

    Anurani Persaud & Peter Dillon

  2. University of Lethbridge, 4401 University Drive, Lethbridge, AB, T1K 3M4, Canada

    Andreas Luek

  3. Cooperative Freshwater Ecology Unit, Vale Living with Lakes Centre, Laurentian University, Sudbury, ON, P3E 2C6, Canada

    Wendel Keller, John Gunn & Tom Johnston

  4. Dorset Environmental Science Centre, Ontario Ministry of the Environment, 1026 Bellwood Acres Road, Dorset, ON, P0A 1E0, Canada

    F. Chris Jones

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  1. Anurani Persaud
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  2. Andreas Luek
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  3. Wendel Keller
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  4. F. Chris Jones
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  5. Peter Dillon
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  6. John Gunn
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  7. Tom Johnston
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Correspondence to Anurani Persaud.

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Persaud, A., Luek, A., Keller, W. et al. Trophic dynamics of several fish species in lakes of a climatically sensitive region, the Hudson Bay Lowlands. Polar Biol 38, 651–664 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00300-014-1628-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00300-014-1628-1

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