Fragmented subfossil <Emphasis Type="Italic">Chaoborus</Emphasis> mandibles reveal periods of cyprinid presence in lake histories

Cyprinid fish have pharyngeal teeth that mash ingested food. Here we show that roach (Rutilus rutilus L.), a common cyprinid in Swedish boreal lakes, often break the mandibles of ingested Chaoborus larvae into smaller fragments. The presence/absence of roach in historic fish communities could therefore possibly be determined from the proportion of fragmented Chaoborus mandibles in lake sediments, which we assessed using the following three approaches. (1) Roach that were fed Chaoborus larvae in laboratory aquaria evacuated a significantly higher fraction of fragmented prey mandibles than perch (Perca fluviatilis L.). (2) Surface sediments from lakes in an acidified region in southwestern Sweden showed significantly higher proportions of fragmented mandibles for lakes containing roach compared to lakes devoid of cyprinid fish. (3) A paleo-study in Lake Lysevatten, into which roach were introduced in the 1880s and were extirpated in the 1960s, showed significantly higher proportions of fragmented mandibles in sediment layers from the roach period. We conclude that mandible fragmentation was related to roach presence, and propose that the proportion of fragmented Chaoborus mandibles in lake sediments may provide important information when historical cyprinid alterations are of interest, as in paleo-studies on acidification, eutrophication, or fish introductions.