Biotic interactions and stream network position affect body size of aquatic vertebrates across watersheds

The body size of aquatic vertebrates is declining across populations and ecosystems worldwide owing to warmer water temperature and changing streamflow. In freshwaters, the effects of stream network position and density-dependent factors on body size are less understood. We used an extensive dataset spanning 41 stream sites over 7?years to evaluate how density-dependent and density-independent factors influence the size of two top predators in small watersheds, Coastal Cutthroat Trout Oncorhynchus clarkii clarkii and Coastal Giant Salamanders Dicamptodon tenebrosus. We tested three hypotheses of body-size variation for trout and salamanders, including intraspecific density dependence, interspecific density dependence, and resource availability, using empirical observations in hierarchical linear mixed models in a model-selection framework. In our best-supported models, the strongest predictors of size were conspecific negative density dependence, as expected, suggesting greater intraspecific interactions probably owing to conspecific individuals having similar requirements. We reveal a biogeographic pattern in which body size peaks in middle stream-network positions and plateaus or declines at lower and upper locations, proposing that stream network position also plays a role in determining body size in small watersheds. Salamander density also has a quadratic effect on adult trout size, with salamanders having a greater overall effect on the body size of both species than trout, suggesting that salamanders might be more dominant than trout in some interactions. Collectively, we found that biotic interactions, mainly conspecific but also interspecific, and stream-network position affect trout and salamander body sizes in small watersheds.
Keywords: biotic interactions; density-dependent; density-independent; ecological modeling; freshwater vertebrates; spatial ecology