Daphnia magna fitness during low food supply under different water temperature and brownification scenarios (original) (raw)
Related papers
Climate Effects on High Latitude Daphnia via Food Quality and Thresholds
PLOS ONE, 2015
Climate change is proceeding rapidly at high northern latitudes and may have a variety of direct and indirect effects on aquatic food webs. One predicted effect is the potential shift in phytoplankton community structure towards increased cyanobacterial abundance. Given that cyanobacteria are known to be a nutritionally poor food source, we hypothesized that such a shift would reduce the efficiency of feeding and growth of northern zooplankton. To test this hypothesis, we first isolated a clone of Daphnia pulex from a permafrost thaw pond in subarctic Québec, and confirmed that it was triploid but otherwise genetically similar to a diploid, reference clone of the same species isolated from a freshwater pond in southern Québec. We used a controlled flow-through system to investigate the direct effect of temperature and indirect effect of subarctic picocyanobacteria (Synechococcus) on threshold food concentrations and growth rate of the high latitude clone. We also compared the direct effect of temperature on both Daphnia clones feeding on eukaryotic picoplankton (Nannochloropsis). The high latitude clone had a significantly lower food threshold for growth than the temperate clone at both 18 and 26°C, implying adaptation to lower food availability even under warmer conditions. Polyunsaturated fatty acids were present in the picoeukaryote but not the cyanobacterium, confirming the large difference in food quality. The food threshold for growth of the high latitude Daphnia was 3.7 (18°C) to 4.2 (26°C) times higher when fed Synechococcus versus Nannochloropsis, and there was also a significant negative effect of increased temperature and cyanobacterial food on zooplankton fatty acid content and composition. The combined effect of temperature and food quality on the performance of the high latitude Daphnia was greater than their effects added separately, further indicating the potentially strong indirect effects of climate warming on aquatic food web processes.
Eutrophication and browning influence Daphnia nutritional ecology
Inland Waters, 2019
Climate change and land-use practices can enhance lake eutrophication and browning, which influence phytoplankton composition by decreasing the availability of food high in nutritional quality (algae) and increasing the abundance of low-quality food (terrestrial detritus, bacteria) for herbivorous zooplankton. Nutritionally valuable algae for zooplankton are rich in essential biomolecules such as amino acids, polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs), sterols, and phosphorus. We performed laboratory experiments and showed a stronger positive relationship between zooplankton (Daphnia) cumulative offspring number and availability of high-quality algae (Cryptophytes: Rhodomonas/Cryptomonas; and Chrysophytes: Mallomonas) than with intermediate-quality (Chlorophytes: Acutodesmus) or poor-quality (Dinoflagellates: Peridinium) algae. The higher cumulative offspring number of Daphnia was a result of higher amounts of total ω-3 and ω-6 PUFA, proteins, sterols, and amino acids in the algal diets. The experiments also showed that even a small addition of high-quality algae (Rhodomonas) to intermediatequality (Acutodesmus) or low-quality (bacteria, heterotrophic nanoflagellates, or terrestrial organic matter) diets can enhance the Daphnia cumulative offspring production. Our carbon mass balance calculation for a eutrophic clearwater lake and an oligotrophic polyhumic lake showed that the abundance of high-quality phytoplankton (cryptophytes, chrysophytes, diatoms) among total particulate organic carbon was minor (8.7% [SD 2.4%] and 6.5% [7.0%]). We modeled Daphnia diets (i.e., resource assimilation) using a fatty acid mixing model. Our analyses showed that Daphnia were able to locate high-quality algae (cryptophytes, chrysophytes, and diatoms) more effectively during cyanobacteria blooms in a eutrophic lake (55% [SD 12%]) than in a polyhumic lake (25% [10%]). Nevertheless, our results show that intense eutrophication and browning diminish assimilation of high quality algae, limiting Daphnia biomass production.
Daphnia fed algal food grown at elevated temperature have reduced fitness
Journal of Limnology, 2014
Lake water temperature is negatively correlated with fatty acids content and P:C ratio in green algae. Hence, elevated temperature may indirectly reduce the fitness of Daphnia due to induced decrease in algal food quality. The aim of this study was to test the hypotheses that quality of algal food decreases with increasing temperature of its culture and that large-bodied Daphnia are more vulnerable to the temperature-related deterioration of algal food quality than small-bodied ones. Laboratory life-table experiments were performed at 20°C with large-bodied D. pulicaria and small-bodied D. cucullata fed with the green alga Scenedesmus obliquus, that had been grown at temperatures of 16, 24 or 32°C. The somatic growth rates of both species decreased significantly with increasing algal culture temperature and this effect was more pronounced in D. pulicaria than in D. cucullata. In the former species, age at first reproduction significantly increased and clutch size significantly decreased with increasing temperature of algae growth, while no significant changes in these two parameters were observed in the latter species. The proportion of egg-bearing females decreased with increasing algal culture temperature in both species. The results of this study support the notion that the quality of algal food decreases with increasing water temperature and also suggest that small-bodied Daphnia species might be less vulnerable to temperature-related decreases in algal food quality than large-bodied ones.
Environmental Research, 2021
The effects of multiple stressors are difficult to separate in field studies, and their interactions may be hard to predict if studied in isolation. We studied the effects of decreasing food quality (increase in cyanobacteria from 5 to 95% simulating eutrophication), temperature increase (by 3°C), and microplastic exposure (1% of the diet) on survival, size, reproduction, and fatty acid composition of the model freshwater cladoceran Daphnia magna. We found that food quality was the major driver of Daphnia responses. When the amount of cyanobacteria increased from 5 to 95% of the diet, there was a drastic decrease in Daphnia survival (from 81 ± 15% to 24 ± 21%), juvenile size (from 1.8 ± 0.2 mm to 1.0 ± 0.1 mm), adult size (from 2.7 ± 0.1 mm to 1.1 ± 0.1 mm), and reproduction (from 13 ± 5 neonates per surviving adult to 0), but the decrease was not always linear. This was most likely due to lower availability of lipids, eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA), and sterols from the diet. Microplastic exposure did not affect Daphnia survival, size, or reproduction. Food quality had an interactive effect with temperature on fatty acid content of Daphnia. Total fatty acid content of Daphnia was almost 2-fold higher at 20°C than at 23°C when fed 50% cyanobacteria. This may have implications for higher trophic level consumers, such as fish, that depend on zooplankton for energy and essential lipids. Our findings suggest that as proportions of cyanobacteria increase, in tandem with water temperatures due to climate change, fish may encounter fewer and smaller Daphnia with lower lipid and EPA content.
Journal of Experimental Zoology Part A-ecological Genetics and Physiology, 2008
The aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of temperature on growth and aerobic metabolism in clones of Daphnia magna from different thermal regimes. Growth rate (increment in size), somatic juvenile growth rate (increment in mass), and oxygen consumption were measured at 15 and 251C in 21 clones from one northern and two southern sites. There were no significant differences in body size and growth rate (increase in length) at both 15 and 251C among the three sites. Clones from southern site 2 had a higher mass increment than clones from the other two sites at both temperatures. Clone had a significant effect on growth (body length) and body size at both temperatures. As expected, age at maturity was lower at 251C (4.5 days) than at 151C, (11.6 days) and body sizes, after the release of the third clutch, were larger at 151C than at 251C. Northern clones had higher oxygen consumption rates and specific dynamic action (SDA) than southern clones at 151C. By contrast, southern clones from site 1 had a higher oxygen consumption and SDA than subarctic clones at 251C. Clones from southern site 2 had high oxygen consumption rates at both temperatures. Our results reveal important differences in metabolic rates among Daphnia from different thermal regimes, which were not always reflected in growth rate differences.
Daphnia growth rates in arctic ponds: limitation by nutrients or carbon
Polar Biology, 2007
Arctic organisms with annual life cycles experience a strong selective pressure to fulfill their life cycle at low temperatures within a short seasonal window. Yet, apart from low temperature, the factors that constrain or promote growth rates in high arctic systems are still poorly understood. A substantial part of the freshwater systems in the arctic consist of shallow, fish-free ponds with the crustacean Daphnia as the key grazer. This grazer has high demands for phosphorus (P) for RNA-synthesis and subsequently protein synthesis for growth. In this study, we compared growth of juvenile Daphnia that were fed seston from two high-Arctic (79°N) ponds on Svalbard in 2004, which differed strongly in P-content and C:P-ratios. In both ponds, Daphnia growth was limited by food quantity (carbon) rather than by P or N. The study also suggests that in absence of predators, infection level of epibionts might be an important factor regulating growth rate and population development of Daphnia growth in these systems.
Many freshwater zooplankton species perform a diel vertical migration (DVM) and spend the day within the lower, colder hypolimnion of stratified lakes. Trade-offs that arise from this migration have already attracted much attention and the cold temperature in the hypolimnion is thought to be the main cost of this behaviour. In this study we additionally looked at the extra costs daphnids have from being exposed to a fluctuating temperature regime (cold during the day and warm during the night) which is less well studied until today. In our experiment Daphnia hyalina Leydig and Daphnia magna Straus either spent 24 h in constant warm water (19 °C), 24 h in constant cold water (12 °C), or spent 12 h in warm and 12 h in cold water in an alternating way (fluctuating temperature regime). We expected the values of the life history parameters of Daphnia in the fluctuating temperature regime to be exactly halfway between the values of the life history parameters in the warm and cold treatments because the daphnids spent exactly half of the time in warm water, and half of the time in cold water. Concordant with earlier studies our results showed that age at first reproduction and egg development time were reduced at higher temperatures. In the fluctuating temperature regime the values of both parameters were exactly halfway between the values at permanently warm and cold temperature regimes. In contrast, somatic growth was higher at higher temperatures but was lower in the fluctuating temperature regime than expected from the mean somatic growth rate. This suggests that a fluctuating temperature regime experienced by migrating daphnids in stratified lakes involves additional costs for the daphnids.
Scientific Reports, 2020
Under conditions of global warming, organisms are expected to track their thermal preferences, invading new habitats at higher latitudes and altitudes and altering the structure of local communities. To fend off potential invaders, indigenous communities/populations will have to rapidly adapt to the increase in temperature. In this study, we tested if decades of artificial water heating changed the structure of communities and populations of the Daphnia longispina species complex. We compared the species composition of contemporary Daphnia communities inhabiting five lakes heated by power plants and four non-heated control lakes. The heated lakes are ca. 3–4 °C warmer, as all lakes are expected to be by 2100 according to climate change forecasts. We also genotyped subfossil resting eggs to describe past shifts in Daphnia community structure that were induced by lake heating. Both approaches revealed a rapid replacement of indigenous D. longispina and D. cucullata by invader D. galeata immediately after the onset of heating, followed by a gradual recovery of the D. cucullata population. Our findings clearly indicate that, in response to global warming, community restructuring may occur faster than evolutionary adaptation. The eventual recolonisation by D. cucullata indicates that adaptation to novel conditions can be time-lagged, and suggests that the long-term consequences of ecosystem disturbance may differ from short-term observations.
Eutrophication and browning influence Daphnia nutritional ecology
2019
Climate change and land-use practices can enhance lake eutrophication and browning, which influence phytoplankton composition by decreasing the availability of food high in nutritional quality (algae) and increasing the abundance of low-quality food (terrestrial detritus, bacteria) for herbivorous zooplankton. Nutritionally valuable algae for zooplankton are rich in essential biomolecules such as amino acids, polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs), sterols, and phosphorus. We performed laboratory experiments and showed a stronger positive relationship between zooplankton (<i>Daphnia</i>) cumulative offspring number and availability of high-quality algae (Cryptophytes: <i>Rhodomonas/Cryptomonas</i>; and Chrysophytes: <i>Mallomonas</i>) than with intermediate-quality (Chlorophytes: <i>Acutodesmus</i>) or poor-quality (Dinoflagellates: <i>Peridinium</i>) algae. The higher cumulative offspring number of <i>Daphnia</i> ...
Temperature and kairomone induced life history plasticity in coexisting Daphnia
Aquatic Ecology, 2006
We investigated the life history alterations of coexisting Daphnia species responding to environmental temperature and predator cues. In a laboratory experiment, we measured Daphnia life history plasticity under different predation risk and temperature treatments that simulate changing environmental conditions. Daphnia pulicaria abundance and size at first reproduction (SFR) declined, while ephippia (resting egg) formation increased at high temperatures. Daphnia mendotae abundance and clutch size increased with predation risk at high temperatures, but produced few ephippia. Thus, each species exhibited phenotypic plasticity, but responded in sharply different ways to the same environmental cues. In Glen Elder reservoir, Kansas USA, D. pulicaria dominance shifted to D. mendotae dominance as temperature and predation risk increased from March to June in both 1999 and 2000. Field estimates of life history shifts mirrored the laboratory experiment results, suggesting that similar phenotypic responses to seasonal cues contribute to seasonal Daphnia population trends. These results illustrate species-specific differences in life history plasticity among coexisting zooplankton taxa.