Seasonal Variations of Zooplankton Functional Groups and Relationship With Environmental Factors in a Eutrophic Reservoir From Cold Region

Abstract

In this study, the concept of functional feeding groups was used to classify zooplankton community into functional groups among three seasons (spring, summer and autumn). A total of 30 zooplankton species were sampled in the Tuanjie Reservoir and identified into seven functional groups. Environmental factors and zooplankton functional group biomass were both varied in spatially and seasonally. Water transparency (SD), dissolved oxygen (DO), pH, N:P and dissolved iron (Fe 3+ ) were higher in autumn while total phosphorus (TP), chemical oxygen demand (CODMn) and dissolved copper (Cu 2+ ) were higher in spring, and temperature (T) and ammonium nitrogen (NH4 + -N) were higher in summer. Zooplankton functional groups biomass was higher in summer, followed by spring and autumn. In spring, zooplankton functional group only dominated by group PF, while in summer and autumn dominated by group PF and RF. Spearman and RDA results showed that SD, conductivity (COND), DO, NH4 + -N, nitrate nitrogen (NO3 --N) and CODMn were the major factors influencing zooplankton functional groups in Tuanjie Reservoir.

Can zooplankton species be used as indicators of trophic status and ecological potential of reservoirs?

“…Also, several algae metrics were established to be reassessed within the WFD, such as biovolume, composition and chlorophyll a (Ptacnik et al 2008;Poikane et al 2009;Phillips et al 2013). The zooplankton can also provide valuable information with various types of metrics to determine the trophic conditions, i.e., functional groups (Obertegger and Manca 2011;Sun et al 2019;Kuczynska-Kippen et al 2020), density (May andOHare 2005;Ejsmont-Karabin 2012;Ejsmont-Karabin and Karabin 2013) and species composition (Attayde and Bozelli 1998;Pinto-Coelho et al 2005;Montagud et al 2019;Muñoz-Colmenares et al 2021).…”