Morphological variation associated with trophic niche expansion within a lake population of a benthic fish

Ecological theory suggests that generalist species should have traits with multiple adaptive peaks. Consequently, in heterogeneous environments such adaptive landscapes may lead to phenotypic divergence that becomes fixed in populations via reproductive isolation, thus driving speciation. However, contrary to this expectation, the process of ecological diversification in wild populations is not always associated with obvious trait divergence and reproductive isolation due to some ecological and geographic constrains. To examine the ecological conditions that promote (or inhibit) divergence is quite important to improve our understanding of the underlying mechanisms. Here we examine how the patterns of trait variation (divergence/non-divergence) are determined in relation to ecological niche expansion and gene flow using a benthic fish, Pseudogobio esocinus, in the Lake Biwa system, Japan. The fish exhibited various patterns of morphological variation in mouth parts among populations. Lake fish tended to have a smaller mouth compared with river fish and also showed remarkable individual variations within some local samples. Lake fish utilized chironomid larvae as the primary prey, as in riverine fish. But, fish with smaller and narrower mouths utilized significantly higher proportions of amphipods (a novel prey unique to the lake) as their secondary prey. Microsatellite analysis detected no genetic structuring in the Lake Biwa catchment, suggesting no reproductive separation among eco-morphologically divergent individuals. Our results exemplify population niche expansion associated with continuous eco-morphological variation without divergence, and provide insights into the role of non-discrete diversification for thriving in heterogeneous environments.