Temporal variation of rotifer community in three climatic zones and their relationship with environmental factors

Abstract

Comparative analyses of rotifer community structure in freshwater lakes among different climatic zones are limited. In this study, six freshwater lakes located in warm temperate, subtropical and tropical zones were selected to investigate the annual dynamics of rotifer communities and their major driving factors. The results indicated that rotifer community structure did not exhibit significant seasonal variations. However, significant differences were observed among climatic zones. The species number and total density of rotifers were significantly higher in subtropical lakes than in lakes from other zones (p < .05). Both multidimensional scaling and detrended correspondence analysis revealed significant separation of tropical samplings from warm temperate and subtropical samplings, which was mainly caused by the higher temperature and lower chlorophyll a content in the tropical lakes. Further analyses indicated that rotifer community structure was mainly affected by water temperature, trophic indices and pH in the warm temperate zone but by chlorophyll a content and Secchi depth in subtropical lakes. In addition, only the Simpson index was significantly associated with Secchi depth and pH in tropical lakes. Overall, these results indicated great differences in annual dynamics of rotifer communities and their driving factors among warm temperate, subtropical and tropical zones.