Incorporation of feeding functional group information informs explanatory patterns of long-term population changes in fish assemblages

The objective of this study was to evaluate long term trends of fish taxa in southern Lake Michigan while incorporating their functional roles to improve our understanding of ecosystem level changes that have occurred in the system over time. The approach used here highlighted the ease of incorporat...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Jason C. Doll, Stephen J. Jacquemin
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: PeerJ Inc. 2021-03-01
Series:PeerJ
Subjects:
Online Access:https://peerj.com/articles/11032.pdf
id doaj-50f5d7e1ca734dda941e0c9a00aea315
record_format Article
spelling doaj-50f5d7e1ca734dda941e0c9a00aea3152021-03-31T15:05:09ZengPeerJ Inc.PeerJ2167-83592021-03-019e1103210.7717/peerj.11032Incorporation of feeding functional group information informs explanatory patterns of long-term population changes in fish assemblagesJason C. Doll0Stephen J. Jacquemin1Freshwater Ecology Center, Department of Biology, Francis Marion University, Florence, SC, USAAgriculture and Water Quality Educational Center, Wright State University—Lake Campus, Celina, OH, USAThe objective of this study was to evaluate long term trends of fish taxa in southern Lake Michigan while incorporating their functional roles to improve our understanding of ecosystem level changes that have occurred in the system over time. The approach used here highlighted the ease of incorporating ecological mechanisms into population models so researchers can take full advantage of available long-term ecosystem information. Long term studies of fish assemblages can be used to inform changes in community structure resulting from perturbations to aquatic systems and understanding these changes in fish assemblages can be better contextualized by grouping species according to functional groups that are grounded in niche theory. We hypothesized that describing the biological process based on partial pooling of information across functional groups would identify shifts in fish assemblages that coincide with major changes in the ecosystem (e.g., for this study, shifts in zooplankton abundance over time). Herein, we analyzed a long-term Lake Michigan fisheries dataset using a multi-species state space modeling approach within a Bayesian framework. Our results suggested the population growth rates of planktivores and benthic invertivores have been more variable than general invertivores over time and that trends in planktivores can be partially explained by ecosystem changes in zooplankton abundance. Additional work incorporating more ecosystem parameters (e.g., primary production, etc.) should be incorporated into future iterations of this novel modeling concept.https://peerj.com/articles/11032.pdfSouthern Lake MichiganFeeding guildsBayesian analysisHierarchical model
collection DOAJ
language English
format Article
sources DOAJ
author Jason C. Doll
Stephen J. Jacquemin
spellingShingle Jason C. Doll
Stephen J. Jacquemin
Incorporation of feeding functional group information informs explanatory patterns of long-term population changes in fish assemblages
PeerJ
Southern Lake Michigan
Feeding guilds
Bayesian analysis
Hierarchical model
author_facet Jason C. Doll
Stephen J. Jacquemin
author_sort Jason C. Doll
title Incorporation of feeding functional group information informs explanatory patterns of long-term population changes in fish assemblages
title_short Incorporation of feeding functional group information informs explanatory patterns of long-term population changes in fish assemblages
title_full Incorporation of feeding functional group information informs explanatory patterns of long-term population changes in fish assemblages
title_fullStr Incorporation of feeding functional group information informs explanatory patterns of long-term population changes in fish assemblages
title_full_unstemmed Incorporation of feeding functional group information informs explanatory patterns of long-term population changes in fish assemblages
title_sort incorporation of feeding functional group information informs explanatory patterns of long-term population changes in fish assemblages
publisher PeerJ Inc.
series PeerJ
issn 2167-8359
publishDate 2021-03-01
description The objective of this study was to evaluate long term trends of fish taxa in southern Lake Michigan while incorporating their functional roles to improve our understanding of ecosystem level changes that have occurred in the system over time. The approach used here highlighted the ease of incorporating ecological mechanisms into population models so researchers can take full advantage of available long-term ecosystem information. Long term studies of fish assemblages can be used to inform changes in community structure resulting from perturbations to aquatic systems and understanding these changes in fish assemblages can be better contextualized by grouping species according to functional groups that are grounded in niche theory. We hypothesized that describing the biological process based on partial pooling of information across functional groups would identify shifts in fish assemblages that coincide with major changes in the ecosystem (e.g., for this study, shifts in zooplankton abundance over time). Herein, we analyzed a long-term Lake Michigan fisheries dataset using a multi-species state space modeling approach within a Bayesian framework. Our results suggested the population growth rates of planktivores and benthic invertivores have been more variable than general invertivores over time and that trends in planktivores can be partially explained by ecosystem changes in zooplankton abundance. Additional work incorporating more ecosystem parameters (e.g., primary production, etc.) should be incorporated into future iterations of this novel modeling concept.
topic Southern Lake Michigan
Feeding guilds
Bayesian analysis
Hierarchical model
url https://peerj.com/articles/11032.pdf
work_keys_str_mv AT jasoncdoll incorporationoffeedingfunctionalgroupinformationinformsexplanatorypatternsoflongtermpopulationchangesinfishassemblages
AT stephenjjacquemin incorporationoffeedingfunctionalgroupinformationinformsexplanatorypatternsoflongtermpopulationchangesinfishassemblages
_version_ 1724177479844757504