Effects of Brook Trout Invasion on Behavioral and Dietary Shifts in Brown Trout

Behavioral variation within a population is generally maintained by frequency dependent selection, allowing various personalities to coexist. Bolder individuals usually engage in more risky behaviors that can gain fitness benefits such as growth under certain conditions. Therefore, it has been suggested that there should be a link between personality and dietary niches, but the results so far are inconsistent. In addition, the equilibrium of the distribution of behavioral traits and the trophic niche of native populations may shift following the introduction of an invasive species. Here, using the invasive brook trout (Salvelinus fontinalis) and native brown trout (Salmo trutta) as model species in two different natural streams in Sweden, we aimed to test whether (1) the trophic niche of native brown trout living in allopatry and brown trout living in sympatry with brook trout differ and (2) bolder brown trout individuals utilize a different foraging niche. Our results suggest that there is a dietary niche convergence between brown trout and brook trout, which likely is a result of brook trout invasion, but that the trophic niche of native brown trout varies across streams, possibly due to differing invasion impacts (varying ratio of brook trout to brown trout). We also found a strong positive correlation between trophic position and personality of brown trout irrespective of the presence of brook trout.