Geographical patterns in the body-size structure of European lake fish assemblages along abiotic and biotic gradients

Our aim was to document geographical patterns of variation in the bodysize structure of European lake fish assemblages along abiotic gradients, and any differences in fish assemblage structure. We hypothesized that patterns in the body-size structure of entire lake fish assemblages are primarily temperature driven and consistent with the dominant pattern of the temperature–size rule, which suggests a decrease in adult body size with increasing developmental temperature for many ectothermic species. Main conclusions: Patterns of variation in the body-size structure of European lake fish assemblages are consistent with the temperature–size rule. Temperature modifies fish assemblage size structure uniformly within the thermal fish guilds and in different ecoregions. Furthermore, our results indicate an increasing predictive power of temperature to explain variability in body-size structure when moving from warmer to colder geographical regions.

EMMRICH Matthias;  PEDRON Stephanie;  BRUCET Sandra;  WINFIELD Ian J;  JEPPESEN Erik;  VOLTA Pietro;  ARGILLIER Christine;  LAURIDSEN Torben L.;  HOLMGREN Kerstin;  HESTHAGEN Trygve;  MEHNER Thomas; 

2019-06-19

WILEY-BLACKWELL

JRC67098

0305-0270 (online),   

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/jbi.12366,    https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC67098,   

10.1111/jbi.12366 (online),