Background Brown trout, Salmo trutta Linnaeus, 1758, is a species of significant conservation and socio-economic importance. A consequence of this importance is the enormous amount of literature that has been published on the species in the last few decades. In general terms, brown trout has been considered as a size-selective predator, even though it is able to feed on a wide range of prey sizes. ...

Ontogenetic dietary shifts (ODSs), the changes in diet utilisation occurring over the life span of an individual consumer, are widespread in the animal kingdom. Understanding ODSs provides fundamental insights into the biological and ecological processes that function at the individual, population and community levels, and is critical for the development and testing of hypotheses around key concepts ...

The identification of patterns in ecological characteristics of organisms is a central challenge in macroecology with a growing research interest. The goal of this study was to establish whether patterns in trophic ecology (trophic position and omnivory) of fishes can be extended to an ecosystem dimension (freshwater vs. marine environments), based on the premise that differences in environmental ...

Sustainable development of hydropower demands a holistic view of potential impacts of water level regulation (WLR) on reservoir ecosystems. Most environmental studies of hydropower have focused on rivers, whereas environmental effects of hydropower operations on reservoirs are less well understood. Here, we synthesize knowledge on how WLR from hydropower affects alpine lake ecosystems and highlight ...

Although diversity and limnology of alpine lake systems are well studied, their food web structure and properties have rarely been addressed. Here, the topological food webs of three high mountain lakes in Central Spain were examined. We first addressed the pelagic networks of the lakes, and then we explored how food web topology changed when benthic biota was included to establish complete trophic ...

In subarctic lake systems, fish species like brown trout are often important predators, and their niche performance is a key characteristic for understanding trophic interactions and food web functioning at upper trophic levels. Here, we studied summer habitat use and stomach contents of brown trout under both allopatric and sympatric conditions in six subarctic lakes to reveal its trophic role, and ...