Ecological speciation in a generalist consumer expands the trophic niche of a dominant predator
Ecological speciation in a generalist consumer expands the trophic niche of a dominant predator
复制标题
通才消费者的生态物种形成扩大了占主导地位的捕食者的营养生态位
作者：
Stephen M. Thomas;C. Harrod;B. Hayden;T. Malinen;K. Kahilainen
生态物种形成——祖先的创始物种通过多样化来填补空缺的生态位——是新形成的生态系统的一种现象特征。尽管如此普遍，但这种差异对生态系统层面的影响仍然知之甚少。在这里，我们比较了欧洲白鲑（Coregonus lavaretus）及其捕食者在一系列对比鲜明的亚北极湖泊中的营养生态位，在这些湖泊中，该物种要么多样化为四种生态形态不同的形态，要么形成单一形态的种群。我们发现，由于种内专业化的增加，多态性湖泊中白鲑的营养生态位几乎是单态性湖泊中的三倍。这种营养生态位的扩张也反映在白鲑的主要捕食者褐鳟（Salmo trutta）身上。这是生态物种形成直接改变捕食者营养位的第一个证据。我们认为，这种机制可能是全球不同生态系统中调节营养相互作用的常见且重要的因素（尽管目前被忽视）。
Ecological speciation – whereby an ancestral founder species diversifies to fill vacant niches – is a phenomenon characteristic of newly formed ecosystems. Despite such ubiquity, ecosystem-level effects of such divergence remain poorly understood. Here, we compared the trophic niche of European whitefish (Coregonus lavaretus) and their predators in a series of contrasting subarctic lakes where this species had either diversified into four ecomorphologically distinct morphs or instead formed monomorphic populations. We found that the trophic niche of whitefish was almost three times larger in the polymorphic than in the monomorphic lakes, due to an increase in intraspecific specialisation. This trophic niche expansion was mirrored in brown trout (Salmo trutta), a major predator of whitefish. This represents amongst the first evidence for ecological speciation directly altering the trophic niche of a predator. We suggest such mechanisms may be a common and important – though presently overlooked – factor regulating trophic interactions in diverse ecosystems globally.
影响因子：
6.6
作者：
Hudson, Lawrence N.;Emerson, Rob;Reuman, Daniel C.
通讯作者：
Reuman, Daniel C.