Animals can respond to human impacts by favouring different morphological traits or by exploiting different food resources. We quantified the morphology and diet of four functionally different fish species (n = 543 fish) from 13 estuaries with varying degrees of human modification in Queensland, Australia. We found differences in the responses of trophic groups to the environmental conditions of estuaries; principally the extent of seagrass in the estuary, and the amount of shoreline and catchment urbanisation. Here, seagrass and urbanisation extent correlated with the diet and morphology of zooplanktivores and detritivores; thereby indicating that human modifications may modify these species functional roles. Conversely, environmental variables did not correlate with the diet or morphology of zoobenthivores or piscivores thereby indicating that human modifications may have less an effect on these species functional roles. Our findings demonstrate that anthropogenic impacts to coastal ecosystems might extend from the traditionally measured metrics of abundance and diversity.

动物可以通过偏爱不同的形态特征或开发不同的食物资源来应对人类的影响。我们量化了来自澳大利亚昆士兰州 13 个河口具有不同程度的人类改造的四种功能不同的鱼类（n = 543 条鱼）的形态和饮食。我们发现营养群体对河口环境条件的反应存在差异；主要是河口海草的范围，以及海岸线和集水区城市化的数量。在这里，海草和城市化程度与浮游动物和碎屑动物的饮食和形态有关；从而表明人类修饰可能会改变这些物种的功能作用。反过来，环境变量与底栖动物或食鱼动物的饮食或形态无关，因此表明人类改造可能对这些物种的功能作用影响较小。我们的研究结果表明，人为对沿海生态系统的影响可能来自传统上衡量的丰度和多样性指标。