Monday April 27, 2026
ScienceDaily —
Researchers led by the University of Alaska Fairbanks examined the stomach contents of northern pike collected by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in the Deshka River during the summers of 2021 and 2022. They compared those findings with samples taken from pike in the same river about ten years earlier.
Their analysis showed that pike across all age groups increased their fish consumption as temperatures rose. The change was especially striking among younger fish, with year-old pike consuming 63 percent more fish than before.
The findings were published in the journal Biological Invasions.
“We expect there will be significant warming in the future, and the amount of fish that pike consume is going to increase with it,” said Benjamin Rich, who led the study while pursuing his graduate degree at the UAF College of Fisheries and Ocean Sciences.