• climate warming;
  • free-floating plants;
  • omnivorous fish;
  • space for time substitution;
  • submerged plants


1. Fish play a key role in the functioning of temperate shallow lakes by affecting nutrient exchange among habitats as well as lake trophic structure and dynamics. These processes are, in turn, strongly influenced by the abundance of submerged macrophytes, because piscivorous fish are often abundant at high macrophyte density. Whether this applies to warmer climates as well is virtually unknown.

2. To compare fish community structure and dynamics in plant beds between subtropical and temperate shallow lakes we conducted experiments with artificial submerged and free-floating plant beds in a set of 10 shallow lakes in Uruguay (30°–35°S) and Denmark (55°–57°N), paired along a gradient of limnological characteristics.

3. The differences between regions were more pronounced than differences attributable to trophic state. The subtropical littoral fish communities were characterised by higher species richness, higher densities, higher biomass, higher trophic diversity (with predominance of omnivores and lack of true piscivores) and smaller body size than in the comparable temperate lakes. On average, fish densities were 93 ind. m−2 (±10 SE) in the subtropical and 10 ind. m−2 (±2 SE) in the temperate lakes. We found a twofold higher total fish biomass per unit of total phosphorus in the subtropical than in the temperate lakes, and as fish size is smaller in the former, the implication is that more energy reaches the littoral zone fish community of the warmer lakes.

4. Plant architecture affected the spatial distribution of fish within each climate zone. Thus, in the temperate zone fish exhibited higher densities among the artificial free-floating plants while subtropical fish were denser in the artificial submerged plant beds. These patterns appeared in most lakes, regardless of water turbidity or trophic state.

5. The subtropical littoral fish communities resembled the fish communities typically occurring in temperate eutrophic and hypertrophic lakes. Our results add to the growing evidence that climate warming may lead to more complex and omnivory-dominated food webs and higher density and dominance of smaller-sized fish. This type of community structure may lead to a weakening of the trophic cascading effects commonly observed in temperate shallow lakes and a higher risk of eutrophication.