A laboratory study of potential effects of the invasive round goby on nearshore fauna of the Baltic Sea

Abstract

In the Baltic Sea, species diversity is relatively low and the introduction of new predator species can have large direct and indirect impacts on native species - both prey and potential competitors. The alien round goby Neogobius melanostomus Pallas, 1811 was introduced to the Baltic Sea in the early 1990s and is now well-established. We examined the feeding habits of male round gobies from the Aland Islands, Finland, where round gobies were first recorded in 2011. Specifically, we tested whether small round gobies (