Over the past 30 years, the round goby (Neogobius melanostomus) has colonized a significant portion of the European river system and a similar trend can be observed in the Great Lakes of North America. In parallel, however, the round goby is coming under strong predation pressure from native predators at these sites, but this appears to be negligible in destabilising its populations. However, quantification of the indirect impact of these predators on the round goby is still lacking. The aim of the present thesis was to reveal the influence of chemical signals of the original, trophically higher predator (European eel - Anguilla anguilla) on the rate of gastric evacuation of the lower predator - round goby. In the experiment, round goby was tested in the following treatments: 1) without chemical signals (control group); 2) with chemical signals originating from the European eel fed by the round goby with enrichment of the water with the conspecific alarm cues from the skin of the round goby (conspecific treatment); 3) with chemical signals originating from the European eel fed by the earthworms (heterospecific treatment). The different treatments were tested on the evacuation rate of the larvae of Chironomus sp. in the digestive tract of the round goby. The rate of gastric evacuation of the round goby was not statistically significantly different among the treatments tested. Tested food was evacuated in all treatments within 9 hours from the start of the experiment. The results obtained show that the presence of chemical signals from a higher predator (European eel), with the simultaneous presence or absence of conspecific alarm cues originating from the food (of the lower predator), does not affect the rate of gastric evacuation of the round goby, which appears to be an additional advantage of this highly invasive aquatic species when colonizing new territories.
