Temporal dynamics of rotifers' feeding guilds shaped by chlorophyll‐a, nitrate, and environmental heterogeneity in subtropical floodplain lakes

Abstract

In floodplains, rotifers are among the most abundant zooplankton organisms and play an important role in ecosystem functioning. Here, we evaluated the distribution of six feeding guilds of rotifers including filter C1 (body size: <200 µm), filter C2 (body size: >200 to <600 µm), filter C3 (body size: >600 to <1000 µm), filter C4 (body size: >1000 µm), suctor, and predator for 11 years. We also analyzed the relationship between guild distribution and environmental parameters (i.e., chlorophyll‐a, phosphate, nitrate, ammonia, and inorganic suspended matter). Finally, we investigated the relationship between feeding guilds heterogeneity (abundance inconsistency) and environmental heterogeneity. Sampling occurred every 3 months from 2000 to 2010 in six shallow lakes of the Upper Paraná River floodplains. Filters C1, Filter C2, and suctors were the dominant feeding guilds. Nitrate and chlorophyll‐a shaped the temporal distribution of the guilds. An intermediate value of environmental heterogeneity was correlated with greater feeding guilds heterogeneity, potentially indicating that intermediate disturbance in the environmental variables may allow for greater differences in abundance distribution between rotifer guilds in shallow floodplain lakes. Our study elucidated the role of rotifers in food resource consumption, energy transfer, and competitive relationships in response to temporal environmental heterogeneity in subtropical floodplains.

Food niches of planktonic rotifers: Diversification and implications

“…These distributions could be determined from published and future studies on the taxonomic structure of rotifer communities, and then used to compare rotifer communities across space or time in both natural ecosystems and outdoor, experimental mesocosms. The diet‐based, food‐niche categories proposed here are an alternative to the functional groups of planktonic rotifers that have been based on: (1) Pourriot's feeding mode dichotomy, where rotifers are considered to be either microphagous or raptorial (Smith et al 2009; Obertegger et al 2011); (2) feeding mode and body size (Bertani et al 2012; Palazzo et al 2021); or (3) the morphology of the jaws and corona (Qian et al 2022).…”

Differentiation strategies for planktonic bacteria and eukaryotes in response to aggravated algal blooms in urban lakes

“…However, a comprehensive understanding of the linkage between environmental factors and the water trophic state is rarely reported. Environmental heterogeneity can reflect variations in environmental properties [ 25 ], and earlier studies report that water environmental heterogeneity changed temporally in the subtropical Paraná River during flooding [ 25 , 34 ]. We found that aggravated algal blooms resulted in decreased environmental heterogeneity, which has not been reported before.…”

Differences in factors determining taxon-based and trait-based community structures: a field test using zooplankton

“…Feeding mode, or the method of resource acquisition, was classified according to Sommer & Stibor (2002), Branstator (2005) and Barnett et al (2007) for cladocerans; Dussart & Defaye (2001) for copepods; and Hillbricht-Ilkowska (1983) and Gilbert (2022) for rotifers. For some rotifer taxa, no published information regarding feeding mode was available; in that case, feeding mode was determined based on the morphology of the trophis (i.e., the grinding apparatus) according to Oh et al (2017) and Palazzo et al (2021). Groups with different maximum population growth rates were classified according to Allan (1976).…”

“…The copyright holder for this preprint (which this version posted April 15, 2024. ; https://doi.org/10.1101/2024.04.12.589151 doi: bioRxiv preprint apparatus) according to Oh et al (2017) and Palazzo et al (2021). Groups with different maximum population growth rates were classified according to Allan (1976).…”