Classification of threespine stickleback along the benthic-limnetic axis

James J. Willacker, Frank A. Von Hippel, Peter R. Wilton, Kelly M. Walton

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

76 Scopus citations

Abstract

Many species of fish display morphological divergence between individuals feeding on macroinvertebrates associated with littoral habitats (benthic morphotypes) and individuals feeding on zooplankton in the limnetic zone (limnetic morphotypes). Threespine stickleback (Gasterosteus aculeatus L.) have diverged along the benthic-limnetic axis into allopatric morphotypes in thousands of populations and into sympatric species pairs in several lakes. However, only a few well known populations have been studied because identifying additional populations as either benthic or limnetic requires detailed dietary or observational studies. In the present study, we develop a Fisher's linear discriminant function based on the skull morphology of known benthic and limnetic stickleback populations from the Cook Inlet Basin of Alaska and test the feasibility of using this function to identify other morphologically divergent populations. Benthic and limnetic morphotypes were separable using this technique and, of 45 populations classified, three were identified as morphologically extreme (two benthic and one limnetic), nine as moderately divergent (three benthic and six limnetic), and the remaining 33 populations as morphologically intermediate. Classification scores were found to correlate with eye size, the depth profile of lakes, and the presence of invasive northern pike (Esox lucius). This type of classification function provides a means of integrating the complex morphological differences between morphotypes into a single score that reflects the position of a population along the benthic-limnetic axis and can be used to relate that position to other aspects of stickleback biology.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)595-608
Number of pages14
JournalBiological Journal of the Linnean Society
Volume101
Issue number3
DOIs
StatePublished - Nov 2010
Externally publishedYes

Keywords

  • Benthic morphotypes
  • Cook Inlet Basin
  • Discriminant analysis
  • Esox lucius
  • Gasterosteus aculeatus
  • Geometric morphometrics
  • Limnetic morphotypes
  • Northern pike
  • Trophic morphotypes

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics

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