Food web of macroinvertebrate community in a Yangtze shallow lake: trophic basis and pathways

Abstract

No detailed food web research on macroinvertebrate community of lacustrine ecosystem was reported in China. The present study is the first attempt on the subject in Lake Biandantang, a macrophytic lake in Hubei Province. Food webs of the macroinvertebrate community were compiled bimonthly from March, 2002 to March, 2003. Dietary information was obtained from gut analysis. Linkage strength was quantified by combining estimates of energy flow (secondary production) with data of gut analysis. The macroinvertebrate community of Lake Biandantang was based heavily on detritus. Quantitative food webs showed the total ingestion ranged from 6930 to 36,340 mg dry mass m )2 bimonthly. The ingestion of macroinvertebrate community was higher in the months with optimum temperature than that in other periods with higher or lower temperature. Through comparison, many patterns in benthic food web of Lake Biandantang are consistent with other detritus-based webs, such as stream webs, but different greatly from those based on autochthonous primary production (e.g. pelagic systems). It suggests that the trophic basis of the web is essential in shaping food web structure.

Feeding habits ofSchizothorax oconnoriLloyd, 1908 in the Yarlung Zangbo River, Tibet

“…For dietary analysis, gut contents were diluted with distilled water and carefully transferred to a counting chamber for microscopic determination. Large food items were identified and enumerated by 10 × 10 magnification (Liu et al., ). Algae and other small items were identified and counted by 10 × 40 magnification using a method proposed by Zhang and Huang ().…”

“…Item weight was obtained by volume conversion method, i.e. all food items were measured using an eyepiece micrometer, the volumes were computed based on their corresponding formulae and then converted to the weight (the specific gravity of prey items is near 1, Zhang and Huang, ; Liu et al., ).…”

Benthic invertebrate production—facilitating answers to ecological riddles in freshwater ecosystems

“…BENTHIC INVERTEBRATE PRODUCTION 273 have now quantified foodweb flows in this way; e.g., Shieh et al (2002) working at 3 differentially impaired sites on the Colorado River, Rosi-Marshall and Wallace (2002) in a mountain stream continuum in North Carolina, Liu et al (2006) in a macrophyte-dominated lake in Hubei Province (China), Runck (2007) on an industrially contaminated stream in Tennessee, Cross et al (2007;Fig . 1) in nutrient-enriched vs nonenriched North Carolina streams, and Register et al (2008) in 4 ponds where invertebrate flows to predaceous amphibian larvae were quantified.…”

Trophic dynamics of macroinvertebrate communities of a subtropical river in China

“…Consequently, subtropical riverine ecosystems may show different characteristics, such as particular consumer composition and specific energy flow pathways. Recently, a number of studies have addressed macroinvertebrates in both lacustrine (Liu, Wang, & Liang, ) and riverine (Yan & Li, , ) ecosystems in the Yangtze River basin. However, these studies were spatially confined, for example, to headwater streams (Yan, Jiang, & Wen, ; Wen, Jiang, Deng, Li, & Yan, ), or have focused on single groups of species such as mayflies (Deng, Ye, Wang, Li, & Yan, ) or caddisflies (Jiang et al, ).…”