Impact of the historical introduction of exotic fishes on the chironomid community of Lake Azul (Azores Islands)

Abstract Little is known about the effect of top predator introduction in historically fishless communities, especially on remote islands. This issue is important because it might strongly affect climate reconstructions derived from biota assemblages such as chironomids. Head capsule larval remains of chironomids have been studied in a 660 years lacustrine sedimentary sequence from Lake Azul (Sao Miguel Island, Azores archipelago) to assess the extent and timescale of the effect of the predator introduction occurring in this historically fishless lake. Analysis of similarity showed that the chironomid assemblage was statistically different before and after predator introduction (R = 0.78; p

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