Nutrition

Brook Stickleback primarily eat copepods such as zooplankton, but they are also predators to other organisms. They eat insects, fish eggs and larvae, seeds, and blue-green algae. Male sticklebacks are very disastrous to other fish because they destroy and eat their young. Culaea inconstans are visual predators that look at the size, movement, and color of the prey before catching them. There is evidence that shows that the presence of Fathead Minnows results in a more diverse diet. This could be because of interspecific competition between the two. When living in environments with Fathead Minnows, Brook Sticklebacks will eat cladocerans (water fleas), ostracods (a class called the seed shrimp), and dipteran larvae (fly larvae).

Water Flea found at http://nas.er.usgs.gov/queries/CollectionInfo.aspx?SpeciesID=161&State=Calanoid Copepod found at http://nas.er.usgs.gov/queries/CollectionInfo.aspx?SpeciesID=178&State=Green Algae found at http://www.pca.state.mn.us/water/clmp-toxicalgae.html

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