Use of cover habitat by bull trout, Salvelinus confluentus, and lake trout, Salvelinus namaycush, in a laboratory environment

Abstract

Lacustrine-adfluvial bull trout, Salvelinus confluentus, migrate from spawning and rearing streams to lacustrine environments as early as age 0. Within lacustrine environments, cover habitat provides refuge from potential predators and is a resource that is competed for if limiting. Competitive interactions between bull trout and other species could result in bull trout being displaced from cover habitat, and bull trout may lack evolutionary adaptations to compete with introduced species, such as lake trout, Salvelinus namaycush. A laboratory experiment was performed to examine habitat use and interactions for cover by juvenile (i.e., <80 mm total length) bull trout and lake trout. Differences were observed between bull trout and lake trout in the proportion of time using cover (F1,22.6 = 20.08, P < 0.001) and bottom (F1,23.7 = 37.01, P < 0.001) habitat, with bull trout using cover and bottom habitats more than lake trout. Habitat selection ratios indicated that bull trout avoided water column habitat in the presence of lake trout and that lake trout avoided bottom habitat. Intraspecific and interspecific agonistic interactions were infrequent, but approximately 10 times greater for intraspecific interactions between lake trout. Results from this study provide little evidence that juvenile bull trout and lake trout compete for cover, and that species-specific differences in habitat use and selection likely result in habitat partitioning between these species.