Zooplankton communities of inter-connected sections of lower River Oder (NW Poland)

Abstract

The aim of this study was the determination and comparative analysis of the zooplankton communities between the inter-connected sections of the lower Oder river in relation to physicochemical factors. The study was performed at five sites of Oder. Two sites were localized in the main channel of Oder (East Oder), other sites were localized in the west arm of Oder and at the beginning of the canal carrying the post-cooling water from the power plant, and the last site was below at the shallow channel joining the Western Oder with the Eastern Oder. At the channel site in which the two arms of the river are connected a significantly higher taxa number, abundance and biomass of crustaceans was observed than at the other sites. The taxonomic similarity index between all sites was at a rather low level. The Pearson’s coefficient, multiple regression analysis and CCA showed that temperature, conductivity and content of nitrates had the strongest impact on the abundance of zooplankton. Thus, in lower, slowly flowing section of River Oder the physico-chemical variables influenced zooplankton density. Post-cooling water from the power plant influenced the zooplankton communities only in the channel discharging the waters into the river, while its influence on the zooplankton in the Oder is insignificant.

Zooplankton Community Along the Sava River

“…The explicit dominance of Rotifera (69 % of total number of taxa, Fig. 2) is in accordance with the well-known fact that in large rivers they have a much higher number of taxa and much greater density than Cladocera and Copepoda [28] and that the contribution of rotifers in zooplankton communities often exceeds 70 % [29].…”

“…This corresponds with the data of Djurkovic et al [18], as well as with the data recorded by Gulyás [4], who researched zooplankton of the Danube and several of its tributaries (Sava included). The dominance of the representatives of these genera was also recorded in other European rivers [29][30][31][32][33]. Table 3 Jaccard's similarity index (C j ) (1-14 sampling points, see Table 1 It is rather interesting that among the planktonic crustaceans no high individual number of species was found.…”

The Role of Environmental Factors in the Formation of Zooplankton in Tributaries of Lake Ladoga (Russia)

“…In autumn, all the groups of zooplanktons prevailed in numbers in different rivers and in different proportions, but the biomass was essentially determined by the members of Cladocera. The major trends in seasonal changes of the community of crustaceans and rotifers observed at the stations of study were common for lotic communities (Czerniawski et al, 2013;Gromova et al, 2013).…”

“…The analysis of the data on the community of crustaceans and rotifers in the regulated Oder River revealed that the most important factor that determines the condition of zooplankton and the physic-chemical properties is WRT (Czerniawski et al, 2013). The influence of hydrochemical factors on the zooplankton of the Novosibirsk reservoir is also connected to the peculiarities of hydrological regime in the parts of the water body (Dvurechenskaya and Yermolaeva, 2014).…”

“…It is interesting that there are many studies describing positive correlation between qualitative patterns of the zooplankton development and water temperature (for instance, in such large rivers as the Danube (Hungary), the Oder (NW Poland)) (Vadadi-Fülöp et al, 2009; Czerniawski et al, 2013), or between it and electric conductivity. However, according to the results of our study, these variables were not included in the equations linking the abundance of zooplankton groups in the Lake Ladoga tributaries and in the Neva River to the environmental factors.…”