Summary
No bigger than a minnow, the three-spine stickleback may seem a puny player in the underwater world. But along the European coastline of the Baltic Sea, it has edged out its own predators—toothy pike and perch, species bigger than your forearm. Records dating back 40 years show how the flamboyant little fish has shifted the ecosystem, thwarting efforts to restore the bigger species favored by human fishers. In the 1990s, sticklebacks began to outnumber their predators ever closer to land, their dominance spreading toward more protected bays and inland waters. Ecologists say what has happened in the Baltic is a dramatic example of a predator-prey reversal, in which two species trade places on the food chain, drastically altering the rest of the ecosystem.
September 04, 2020 at 12:48AM
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An ecosystem goes topsy-turvy as a tiny fish takes over - Science Magazine
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