Salmonid eggs are likely a valuable resource for sculpins.
They are abundant, easy to catch, and require little handling
(see Biga 1996) and are energy rich (about 6200 cal/g dry egg
(1 cal = 4.1868 J), Wetzel 1993). Further, their availability in
late summer before the long Alaskan winter probably increases
their importance in the ecology of the sculpins. The amount of
fall energy stores in freshwater fishes can have a direct effect
on overwinter survival (Gardiner and Geddes 1980; Smith and
Griffith 1994) and on reproduction the following year (Meffe
and Snelson 1993). When sculpins arrived on the beach in
early August, their condition appeared low, even though the
majority of the summer and the associated feeding opportunities
were past, and then increased substantially with the spawning
of the salmon (Fig. 3). Hershey and McDonald (1985)
noted that larger slimy sculpins appeared to be food limited in
Toolik Lake, Alaska, and linked this to the exponential increase
in rate of mortality of larger sculpins once they reached
maturity. If older Iliamna Lake sculpins are also food limited,
and unable to recoup the energy losses associated with their
late spring and early summer spawning period (Craig and
Wells 1976), then an abundant egg resource will likely have
significant effects on overwinter survival and future reproduction.