Spatial distribution of crustacean zooplankton in a large river-connected lake related to trophic status and fish

Abstract

It has been reported that community structure of crustacean zooplankton is related to environment factors and abundance of predacious fishes. Most studies, however were based on observation on independent water bodies, which may complicate the results with uninterested factors. A large river-connected lake has partitioned regions with the characteristics of either a river or a lake albeit allowing exchanging of zooplankton of different regions. Thus, a river-connected lake is an ideal system for studying distribution of crustacean zooplankton and investigating its affecting factors. In this study, 11 stations of a large river-connected lake, Lake Gaoyou, were sampled in all four seasons. Taxonomic diversity and species abundance were recorded and their correlation with environmental factors was investigated. A total of 26 and 22 species of crustacean zooplankton were recorded in the river and lake region, respectively. The abundance of crustacean in the river region was significantly higher than that in the lake region. The relative abundance of calanoids and Bosmina fatalis in the river region was lower than that in the lake region, whereas the abundance of cyclopoids and other cladocera species was lower in the lake region than in the river region. Cluster analysis showed that crustacean assemblages could be divided into two, one cluster grouping all sites from the river region, and the other cluster included all sites in the lake region. According to Pearson correlation and canonical correspondence analysis, the distribution of crustacean was positively correlated with water temperature and chlorophyll a gradient. Chlorophyll a and fish abundance are excellent predictors on spatial distribution of crustacean zooplankton in Lake Gaoyou. Our findings may also help in planning of bighead carp stocking in Lake Gaoyou.

Climatic and hydrological changes in Gaoyou Lake, eastern China over the last millennium, inferred from pollen and grain size records

“…Trees in the genera Salix, Ulmus, Populus, and Paulownia are commonly used in artificial cultivation (Wang and Yang, 1990). There are 38 genera of Planktonic algae in Gaoyou Lake, and these are dominated by Chlorophyta (40.0%), Cyanophyta (24.2%), and Bacillariophyta (13.64%) (Wei et al, 2017).…”

“…As a result, the evolution of Gaoyou Lake was closely linked with the large river system and regional climate changes in eastern China, which made it an ideal site for the study of the regional hydrological and environmental evolution. Researches during the modern period have studied the changes in the water area, biological characteristics, and water quality of Gaoyou Lake (Wei et al, 2017;Guan et al, 2019;Zhang et al, 2020). However, the paleoenvironmental studies of Gaoyou Lake sediments have not received adequate attention.…”

Unsupervised Machine Learning and Data Mining Procedures Reveal Short Term, Climate Driven Patterns Linking Physico-Chemical Features and Zooplankton Diversity in Small Ponds

“…These ecosystems are widely distributed in agricultural areas and are generally considered marginal due to their isolation, unpredictable duration and natural or anthropic disturbance with greater biotic and environmental temporal amplitudes than rivers and lakes [31,32]. The factors affecting crustacean zooplankton community structure and the comparison between different water bodies have been described and their effect may be blurred by historic or geographic reasons [33][34][35][36][37][38]. Among others, climate change, land use, irrigation strategies and contamination by heavy metals and pesticides may cause different adverse effects on species diversity.…”