Latitudinal trends in adult body size of Dolly Varden, with special reference to the food availability hypothesis

Abstract

The food availability hypothesis (FAH) predicts that the relative productivity of ocean and freshwater habitats changes with latitude, and that anadromy will evolve when ocean productivity is greater than that in neighboring freshwater habitats, or vice versa. In data sets for the anadromous salmonid species Salvelinus malma, we show that the relative body size at maturity of anadromous populations is much larger in the northern limits of their ranges than that of fluvial populations, and, conversely, that of fluvial populations is slightly smaller at the southern limits than that of anadromous populations, supporting the FAH for the evolution of migration behavior in salmonids.