Historical and recent biomass and food web relations of Limnocalanus in Lake Huron

Reported population biomass of Limnocalanus macrurus in Lake Huron has been underestimated by several-fold owing to application of an inappropriate length–weight regression model. During August and September the underestimates can exceed three-fold, suggesting that secondary production of the species in the lake is greater than previously thought. Increased representation of the species in the plankton community in recent years is associated with a decrease in its trophic level deduced through nitrogen stable isotope analysis of specimens from opportunistic samples obtained in 1993, 1995, and 2009. Limnocalanus15N enrichment relative to primary herbivores appears to have decreased by 1.5‰ over this time period. Similarly, Diaptomus15N enrichment relative to primary herbivores appeared to decrease by 1.1‰ from 1993 to 2009. Our data offer at least two possible explanations for this shift. (1) Limnocalanus has adopted a more herbivorous diet in response to the ecological changes in Lake Huron or (2) hypolimnetic Diaptomus have adopted a more herbivorous diet and Limnocalanus is relying in part on Diaptomus as a food source. •Biomass of Limnocalanus in Lake Huron has been significantly underestimated.•We applied stable isotope analysis at species level to decipher food web structure.•Limnocalanus is now feeding lower on the food chain than it did in the 1990s.