Community structure influences species’ abundance along environmental gradients

Species response to abiotic environmental variation can be influenced by local community structure and interspecific interactions, particularly in restricted habitats such as islands and lakes. In temperate lakes, future increase in water temperature and runoff of terrestrial (allochthonous) dissolved organic carbon (DOC) are predicted to alter community composition and the overall ecosystem productivity. However, little is known about how the present community structure and abiotic environmental variation interact to affect the abundance of native fish populations. We used a space-for-time approach to study how local community structure interact with lake morphometric and climatic characteristics (i.e., temperature and catchment productivity) to affect brown trout (Salmo trutta L.) yield in 283 Norwegian lakes located in different biogeographical regions. Brown trout yield (based on data from standardized survey gill net fishing; g 100 m−2 gill net night−1) was generally lower in lakes...