Comparative studies on seasonal variations of metazooplankton in waters with different eutrophic states in Lake Taihu

Abstract

A comparative study on the metazooplankton community was conducted in three different eutrophic areas, including Lake Wulihu, Meiliang Bay and the central open water area, in Lake Taihu from Oct. 2003 to Sep. 2004. Forty metazooplankton species were identified in Lake Wulihu, 37 in Meiliang Bay, and 34 in the central open water area. The annual average abundance of metazooplankton was 218 ind. l(-1) in the central open water area, 309 ind. l(-1) in Meiliang Bay, and 384 ind. l(-1) in Lake Wulihu. In Lake Wulihu, rotifers, Brachionus calyciflorus and Brachionus angularis, were the dominant species, which contributed 20.9% and 17.2% to the total metazooplankton abundance. Bosmina coregoni and Ceriodaphnia cornuta were the dominant species, contributing 20.4% and 11.3% of the total in Meiliang Bay, and contributing 21.6% and 16.2% of the total in the central open water area. There was a significant positive relationship between rotifers abundance and Secchi transparency. Cladoceran and copepod abundance were positively correlated with total phosphorus and water temperature. Our results show that structures of metazooplankton community differ between the three lake areas with different eutrophic states in Lake Taihu.

Changes in physicochemical and biological factors during regime shifts in a restoration demonstration of macrophytes in a small hypereutrophic Chinese lake

“…5 and 6). Zooplankton, owing to their small, fast reproducing and sensitive characteristics, are good indicators of environmental changes (Sládeček, 1983) and frequently used in environmental monitoring and assessment (Gulati, 1983;Xu et al, 2005;Yang et al, 2009). In the present case, the zooplankton community structure including qualitative and quantitative parameters indicated the different stages well.…”

Rotifer community structure and assessment of water quality in Yangcheng Lake

“…Algae are an important food source for rotifers, and many studies have shown that the rotifer density is significantly correlated with chl a (Temerova et al, 2002;Devetter and Sed'a, 2003;Sellami et al, 2009). However, other studies have found no correlation between density and chl a (Castro et al, 2005;Yang and Zhong, 2009). In this study, density and biomass were not directly correlated with chl a.…”

Comparative analysis of rotifer community structure in five subtropical shallow lakes in East China: role of physical and chemical conditions

“…It is widely reported that total phosphorus (TP) has great effects on rotifer distribution and abundance (Berzins & Pejler, 1989a;Kuczyńska-Kippen & Nagengast, 2006), and rotifer species richness and diversity declined considerably with increasing TP (Jeppesen et al, 2000). However, some other studies found that phosphorus was not a limiting nutrient, rather nitrogenous nutrients (Devetter, 1998;Castro et al, 2005;Wang et al, 2010), transparency (Yang et al, 2009), and chlorophyll-a (Chl-a) combined with other factors (Contreras et al, 2009) were found to regulate the dynamics of rotifer assemblages. Additionally, water temperature is likely to be a key factor in determining rotifer community structure in subtropical climates because of dramatic seasonal changes.…”