Stephanie E. Figary , James M. Watkins , T. Bruce Lauber , Anne E. Scofield , Lars G. Rudstam
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引用次数: 0
Abstract
Zooplankton are a vital component of the food web as the major conduit of energy from primary producers to planktivorous fishes. Therefore, changes in the structure of the zooplankton community affect how energy moves through aquatic ecosystems. Changes in the zooplankton community structure are typically documented through detailed community analysis, which can be difficult to interpret and communicate to non-experts. Alternatively, a few key summary indicators of community structure may better disseminate this information to a broader audience. In this study we analyzed zooplankton data from 1997 to 2019 from the US Environmental Protection Agency’s Great Lakes National Program Office to select indicators that summarized changes in the zooplankton community. Two indicators (percent of calanoids by biomass and areal density of herbivorous cladocerans) detected known changes in lakes Huron, Michigan, and Ontario, correlated with the crustacean zooplankton areal biomass above (herbivorous cladocerans) or in the hypolimnion (percent calanoids), and were related to the lake or basin-wide Carlson’s Trophic State Index based on chlorophyll (TSIchl) (percent calanoids by biomass). Our findings suggest that employing one or both selected indicators in addition to TSIchl and total crustacean zooplankton areal biomass, an already reported indicator in the Great Lakes that captures overall food availability for fish, would provide additional key information about zooplankton community structure in simple metrics that could be effectively communicated to stakeholders.
期刊介绍:
Published six times per year, the Journal of Great Lakes Research is multidisciplinary in its coverage, publishing manuscripts on a wide range of theoretical and applied topics in the natural science fields of biology, chemistry, physics, geology, as well as social sciences of the large lakes of the world and their watersheds. Large lakes generally are considered as those lakes which have a mean surface area of >500 km2 (see Herdendorf, C.E. 1982. Large lakes of the world. J. Great Lakes Res. 8:379-412, for examples), although smaller lakes may be considered, especially if they are very deep. We also welcome contributions on saline lakes and research on estuarine waters where the results have application to large lakes.