Diet overlap between young-of-the-year perch, Perca fluviatilis L., and burbot, Lota lota (L.), during early life-history stages

Abstract –  The diet overlap between young-of-the-year (YOY) perch and burbot in the pelagic zone of Lake Constance during spring and summer was investigated in relation to gape size limitation. Because perch were larger and grew faster than burbot during their early life history, perch overcame gape size limitation for various zooplankton taxa earlier than burbot. The interspecific diet overlap between perch and burbot decreased continuously until June, but increased slightly, when burbot became able to feed on large daphnids by the beginning of July. All zooplankton taxa could be found within perch stomachs by the middle of June, when perch overcame gape size limitation for large cladocerans. However, there was an increasing tendency for individual diet specialisation of perch, as the similarity between individual perch stomach contents decreased. In contrast, the similarity between individual burbot stomach contents remained at almost 50% until the end of August, indicating that all burbot rely on cyclopoid copepods during their entire pelagic life-history stage. Because by July YOY perch are more abundant by one order of magnitude in the pelagic zone than burbot, YOY perch may be more affected by intraspecific competition than by interspecific competition with burbot. Burbot, on the other hand, may evade strong competition with YOY perch by performing diel vertical migrations, thus being restricted to feed on migrating zooplankton prey.