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Zooplankton-phytoplankton biomass and diversity relationships in the Great Lakes

Quantifying the relationship between phytoplankton and zooplankton may offer insight into zooplankton sensitivity to shifting phytoplankton assemblages and the potential impacts of producer-consumer decoupling on the rest of the food web. We analyzed 18 years (2001–2018) of paired phytoplankton and...

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Autores principales: Kovalenko, Katya E., Reavie, Euan D., Figary, Stephanie, Rudstam, Lars G., Watkins, James M., Scofield, Anne, Filstrup, Christopher T.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2023
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10602272/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37883482
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0292988
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author Kovalenko, Katya E.
Reavie, Euan D.
Figary, Stephanie
Rudstam, Lars G.
Watkins, James M.
Scofield, Anne
Filstrup, Christopher T.
author_facet Kovalenko, Katya E.
Reavie, Euan D.
Figary, Stephanie
Rudstam, Lars G.
Watkins, James M.
Scofield, Anne
Filstrup, Christopher T.
author_sort Kovalenko, Katya E.
collection PubMed
description Quantifying the relationship between phytoplankton and zooplankton may offer insight into zooplankton sensitivity to shifting phytoplankton assemblages and the potential impacts of producer-consumer decoupling on the rest of the food web. We analyzed 18 years (2001–2018) of paired phytoplankton and zooplankton samples collected as part of the United States Environmental Protection Agency (U.S. EPA) Great Lakes Biology Monitoring Program to examine both the long-term and seasonal relationships between zooplankton and phytoplankton across all five Laurentian Great Lakes. We also analyzed effects of phytoplankton diversity on zooplankton biomass, diversity, and predator-prey (zooplanktivore/grazer) ratios. Across the Great Lakes, there was a weak positive correlation between total algal biovolume and zooplankton biomass in both spring and summer. The relationship was weaker and not consistently positive within individual lakes. These trends were consistent over time, providing no evidence of increasing decoupling over the study period. Zooplankton biomass was weakly negatively correlated with algal diversity across lakes, whereas zooplankton diversity was unaffected. These relationships did not change when we considered only the edible phytoplankton fraction, possibly due to the high correlation between total and edible phytoplankton biovolume in most of these lakes. Lack of strong coupling between these producer and consumer assemblages may be related to lagging responses by the consumers, top-down effects from higher-level consumers, or other confounding factors. These results underscore the difficulty in predicting higher trophic level responses, including zooplankton, from changes in phytoplankton assemblages.
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spelling pubmed-106022722023-10-27 Zooplankton-phytoplankton biomass and diversity relationships in the Great Lakes Kovalenko, Katya E. Reavie, Euan D. Figary, Stephanie Rudstam, Lars G. Watkins, James M. Scofield, Anne Filstrup, Christopher T. PLoS One Research Article Quantifying the relationship between phytoplankton and zooplankton may offer insight into zooplankton sensitivity to shifting phytoplankton assemblages and the potential impacts of producer-consumer decoupling on the rest of the food web. We analyzed 18 years (2001–2018) of paired phytoplankton and zooplankton samples collected as part of the United States Environmental Protection Agency (U.S. EPA) Great Lakes Biology Monitoring Program to examine both the long-term and seasonal relationships between zooplankton and phytoplankton across all five Laurentian Great Lakes. We also analyzed effects of phytoplankton diversity on zooplankton biomass, diversity, and predator-prey (zooplanktivore/grazer) ratios. Across the Great Lakes, there was a weak positive correlation between total algal biovolume and zooplankton biomass in both spring and summer. The relationship was weaker and not consistently positive within individual lakes. These trends were consistent over time, providing no evidence of increasing decoupling over the study period. Zooplankton biomass was weakly negatively correlated with algal diversity across lakes, whereas zooplankton diversity was unaffected. These relationships did not change when we considered only the edible phytoplankton fraction, possibly due to the high correlation between total and edible phytoplankton biovolume in most of these lakes. Lack of strong coupling between these producer and consumer assemblages may be related to lagging responses by the consumers, top-down effects from higher-level consumers, or other confounding factors. These results underscore the difficulty in predicting higher trophic level responses, including zooplankton, from changes in phytoplankton assemblages. Public Library of Science 2023-10-26 /pmc/articles/PMC10602272/ /pubmed/37883482 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0292988 Text en https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/This is an open access article, free of all copyright, and may be freely reproduced, distributed, transmitted, modified, built upon, or otherwise used by anyone for any lawful purpose. The work is made available under the Creative Commons CC0 (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) public domain dedication.
spellingShingle Research Article
Kovalenko, Katya E.
Reavie, Euan D.
Figary, Stephanie
Rudstam, Lars G.
Watkins, James M.
Scofield, Anne
Filstrup, Christopher T.
Zooplankton-phytoplankton biomass and diversity relationships in the Great Lakes
title Zooplankton-phytoplankton biomass and diversity relationships in the Great Lakes
title_full Zooplankton-phytoplankton biomass and diversity relationships in the Great Lakes
title_fullStr Zooplankton-phytoplankton biomass and diversity relationships in the Great Lakes
title_full_unstemmed Zooplankton-phytoplankton biomass and diversity relationships in the Great Lakes
title_short Zooplankton-phytoplankton biomass and diversity relationships in the Great Lakes
title_sort zooplankton-phytoplankton biomass and diversity relationships in the great lakes
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10602272/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37883482
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0292988
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