Oecologia. 1999 Jul;120(1):137-146. doi: 10.1007/s004420050842.
Oecologia
Kristen H Desmarais, Alan J Tessier
PMID: 28308045 DOI: 10.1007/s004420050842
An important environmental factor determining both phytoplankton and zooplankton community composition is lake depth and thermal stratification. However, there is little information on how the interaction between zooplankton grazers and their phytoplankton food changes along an environmental gradient of lake depth. We contrasted resource availability for daphniid zooplankton populations living in two shallow, unstratified lakes and in two deep, stratified lakes using a novel growth bioassay. Stratified lakes had consistently lower resource richness than shallow unstratified lakes. To test whether resources were important in explaining differences in daphniid composition of shallow and deep lakes, we performed reciprocal transplant experiments. We raised daphniids typical of shallow (Ceriodaphnia reticulata) and deep (Daphnia dentifera) lakes in the resources from replicate shallow and deep lakes and monitored survival and reproduction. The two species exhibited a performance trade-off, measured by life table r and R
Keywords: Ceriodaphnia; Daphnia; Key words Growth rate; Lake depth; Resource quality
