Distributive stress: Individually variable responses to hypoxia expand trophic niches in fish

Environmental stress can reshape trophic interactions by excluding predators or rendering prey vulnerable, depending on the relative sensitivity of species to the stressor. Classical models of food web responses to stress predict either complete predator exclusion from stressed areas or complete prey vulnerability if predators are stress tolerant. However, if the consumer response to the stress is individually variable, the result may be a distributive stress model (DSM) whereby predators distribute consumption pressure across a range of prey guilds and their trophic niche is expanded. We test these models in one of the largest hypoxic “Dead Zones” in the world, the northern Gulf of Mexico, by combining geochemical tracers of hypoxia exposure and isotope ratios to assess individual-level trophic responses. Hypoxia-exposed fish occupied niche widths that were 14.8% and 400% larger than their normoxic counterparts in two different years, consistent with variable displacement from benthic to pelagic food webs. The degree of isotopic displacement depended on the magnitude of hypoxia exposure. These results are consistent with the DSM and highlight the need to account for individually variable sublethal effects when predicting community responses to environmental stress