Reduced intraspecific variation in lake trout food webs under warmer temperatures and smaller ecosystem sizes.

ABSTRACT: Food web theory has illustrated that mobile top predators, such as lake trout (Salvelinus namaycush), can be potent stabilizers of food webs due to their ability to shift foraging behaviors in response to changing conditions. Consistent with this, research has demonstrated that mean lake trout food web attributes (i.e., trophic position and nearshore coupling) structurally change across environmental gradients; however, intraspecific variation in these attributes across gradients has not been fully explored. Here, we used stable isotope-based food web metrics to investigate how both mean and intraspecific variation in trophic structure changes in Canadian boreal shield lakes across gradients in ecosystem size, temperature, and competition. Consistent with earlier findings, we find nearshor

SUBMITTER: Kotsopoulos CJ 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12501830 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature