Which ecological factors influence the level of intraspecific diversity within post‐glacial fishes? A case study using Coregonus and Salvelinus

Abstract

Abstract While it is likely that ecological context is important, the factors that facilitate and maintain variable levels of intraspecific diversity in Salmonidae fishes across environments remain unclear. Using a meta‐analysis of sympatric ecotype assemblages from two salmonid genera—Salvelinus and Coregonus—we evaluated the importance of ecological factors determining the number of sympatric ecotypes (i.e. 2–7) and the level of trait divergence between them. We found that ecotype diversity increased with lake depth and surface area in both Coregonus and Salvelinus. Further, diversity in Coregonus increased with latitude, while the number of ecotypes in Salvelinus assemblages was linked to climatic seasonality. In comparing the two genera, we found elevated divergence in traits related to ontogeny (i.e. age and body shape) in Salvelinus and gill raker count in Coregonus. Trait divergence in life history traits (i.e. age and body length) in Salvelinus increased with seasonality, whereas contrasting relationships of latitude to body length and gill rakers were found in Coregonus. We also found similar levels of divergence in trait variance in the two genera, suggesting that among‐ecotype differences in phenotypic variability are not more common in one genus than the other. Overall, ecosystem characteristics, including lake location, climate and morphometry, are clearly important for where these genera have diversified, but the variables that are most closely associated with intraspecific diversity differ between the two genera studied and depend on whether diversity is quantified using number of ecotypes or trait divergence.