Herbivore consumers face different challenges along opposite sides of the stoichiometric knife‐edge

Zhou, Libin; Declerck, Steven

doi:10.1111/ele.13386

Cited by 28 publications

(36 citation statements)

References 83 publications

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“…Many studies have demonstrated that a mismatch between the elemental requirements of consumers and their prey (i.e. 'stoichiometric mismatch') results in altered phenotypes and reduced performance of consumers (Elser et al 2001, Frost and Elser 2002, Zhou and Declerck 2019. However, the role of maternal effects in determining the phenotypic response to stoichiometric mismatch is still poorly understood.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Maternal effects in zooplankton consumers are not only mediated by direct but also by indirect effects of phosphorus limitation

Zhou

Declerck

2020

Oikos

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Nutrient limitation of primary producers has repeatedly been shown to negatively affect consumers, directly through stoichiometric mismatch and indirectly via alterations in the producer's biochemical quality or palatability. In this study, we assessed whether direct and indirect impacts of phosphorus‐limitation on a planktonic consumer are transferred to the next generation via maternal effects and whether these effects reflect an anticipatory adaptive strategy. For this, we subjected cultures of the algivorous monogonont rotifer Brachionus calyciflorus to three food quality treatments, i.e. P‐limited (LP), P‐replete (HP) and P‐enriched LP algae (i.e. algae with an LP‐growth history but with molar C:P ratios equal to those of HP‐algae). After two generations, we subjected offspring of these cultures to each of the three food quality treatments and monitored life history traits. In addition, we tested starvation resistance. Our results showed very strong negative maternal effects of low P food on offspring performance. These negative effects prevailed irrespective of contemporary diets, suggesting transmissive and selfish maternal effects rather than anticipatory adaptive effects. The relative strength of direct and indirect maternal P‐limitation effects varied among different traits. Adult body size was predominantly determined by direct effects of P‐shortage in maternal as well as contemporary food (LP < LP + P and LP + P = HP). In contrast, whereas egg size was negatively affected by direct effects of P‐limitation in the maternal diet, a contemporary diet of LP and LP + P algae resulted in larger eggs than HP algae. Animals born from such larger eggs showed no higher growth rates, but they were more resistant to starvation, likely as the result of higher maternal allocation of energy rich molecules to the eggs. The present study shows that maternal food conditions represent an important factor that should be taken into account in studies of stoichiometric mismatch between producers and consumers.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Maternal effects in zooplankton consumers are not only mediated by direct but also by indirect effects of phosphorus limitation

Zhou

Declerck

2020

Oikos

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“…Another type of studies uses the method to evaluate the effects of various degrees of P limitation on consumer performance while controlling for indirect, non-stoichiometric effects. Whereas numerous studies in the framework of ES have addressed the effects of P-limitation, few have addressed the response of consumers along very broad ranges of stoichiometric food quality, including treatments with excess P (i.e., food with very low C:P ratios, Plath and Boersma 2001;Zhou and Declerck 2019). Intriguingly, several of these studies have reported unimodal responses to broad food C:P gradients with reduced consumer performance not only at high but also at very low food C:P levels (coined as the 'stoichiometric knife-edge'; Plath and Boersma 2001;Elser et al 2006Elser et al , 2016Bullejos et al 2014).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A critical assessment of the stoichiometric knife-edge: no evidence for artifacts caused by the experimental P-supplementation of algae

Zhou

Declerck

2021

Aquat Ecol

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The stoichiometric knife-edge refers to the reduced performance of consumers encountering food with excess phosphorus (P) relative to carbon (C) or nitrogen (N). Studies that provide evidence for such knife-edge in aquatic systems often apply phosphate supplementation to create P-rich food treatments. However, this method may suffer from artifacts, because after uptake algae may store P in a form different from the P-rich biomolecules typically consumed by zooplankton. Our aim was to test if P supplementation results in potential biases. We experimentally exposed populations of the herbivore rotifer species, Brachionus calyciflorus (Pallas), to four different food quality treatments: algae grown under P-saturating (HPchem, molar C:P ratio = 59.7 ± 2.7) and P-sufficient (MPchem, molar C:P = 116.3 ± 5.2) conditions in chemostats, and algae grown under P-limiting conditions, but with molar C:P ratios equal to HPchem and MPchem treatments, respectively (HPLP+P, molar C:P = 59.8 ± 0.14; MPLP+P, molar C:P = 121.0 ± 4.3). The latter two treatments were achieved through P-supplementation of P-limited algae. Results show that for rotifers fed algae with either excess or intermediate P content, population growth rates were consistently higher on algae grown in chemostats than algae treated with the P supplementation method. Importantly, growth rates were also consistently lower in HP than in MP treatments and the magnitude of this negative impact was independent on algal growth history. The latter result confirms the existence of a stoichiometric knife-edge and indicates that P supplementation is a reliable method to study the relative effect of excess P on zooplankton performance in a standardized way.

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“…C‐limited) growth to a nutrient‐limited growth. Deviations of food stoichiometry bellow or above the TER induce a dietary (C‐ or nutrient‐) limitation for consumers (Frost et al, 2006) and lead to a unimodal response of growth to food stoichiometry also known as the “stoichiometric knife‐edge” (Elser et al, 2016; Zhou & Declerck, 2019). Besides the effects on consumer performance, the TER can explain consumer‐driven P and N recycling in ecosystems (Cherif & Loreau, 2013), population dynamics (Elser et al, 2000; Frost et al, 2006) and species interactions (Boersma et al, 2016).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

U‐shaped response Unifies views on temperature dependency of stoichiometric requirements

et al. 2020

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Temperature and nutrient availability, which are major drivers of consumer performance, are dramatically affected by global change. To date, there is no consensus on whether warming increases or decreases consumer needs for dietary carbon (C) relatively to phosphorus (P), thus hindering predictions of secondary production responses to global change. Here, we investigate how the dietary C:P ratio optimising consumer growth (TER C:P : Threshold Elemental Ratio) changes along temperature gradients by combining a temperature-dependent TER C:P model with growth experiments on Daphnia magna. Both lines of evidence show that the TER C:P response to temperature is U-shaped. This shape indicates that consumer nutrient requirements can both increase or decrease with increasing temperature, thus reconciling previous contradictive observations into a common framework. This unified framework improves our capacity to forecast the combined effects of nutrient cycle and climatic alterations on invertebrate production.

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Herbivore consumers face different challenges along opposite sides of the stoichiometric knife‐edge

Cited by 28 publications

References 83 publications

Maternal effects in zooplankton consumers are not only mediated by direct but also by indirect effects of phosphorus limitation

Maternal effects in zooplankton consumers are not only mediated by direct but also by indirect effects of phosphorus limitation

A critical assessment of the stoichiometric knife-edge: no evidence for artifacts caused by the experimental P-supplementation of algae

U‐shaped response Unifies views on temperature dependency of stoichiometric requirements

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