Population niche width is driven by within-individual niche expansion and individual specialization in introduced brook trout in mountain lakes.

ABSTRACT: The width of a population's resource-use niche is determined by individual diet breadth ("within-individual component") and the degree of niche partitioning between individuals ("between-individual component"). The balance between these two factors affects ecological stability and evolutionary trajectories, and may shift as ecological opportunity permits broader population niches. Lakes in California's Sierra Nevada Mountains vary in resource diversity for introduced brook trout (Salvelinus fontinalis) due to elevation, lake morphometry, and watershed features. We compared the relative contributions of within- and between-individual niche components to two measures of the dietary niches of thirteen populations of brook trout: prey taxonomic composition and prey size distribution. For both

SUBMITTER: Baker HK 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9547792 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature