Zooplankton diversity in Lake Tondano, Indonesia

Abstract

Study on freshwater ecology have been long focused on subtropical habitats with few references to tropical regions including Indonesia. Zooplankton, in particular, is an important component of aquatic ecosystem as they are key player of aquatic food webs, thus a solid understanding of their community structure can be of direct benefit to freshwater ecosystem management. The spatial patterns of zooplankton diversity in Lake Tondano, Celebes Island – Indonesia were studies in 2013, with the main aim was to understand how local environmental and habitat heterogeneity driving the zooplankton community structure. We performed field samplings to collect zooplankton using a vertical tow with a 156 μm mesh plankton net from 1 meter above sediment to the surface and to measure environmental parameters using portable multi probes water quality checker from three different water columns. The sampling sites were selected to include different habitats within the lake to look at diversity of the entire zooplankton communities including Rotifers, Cladocerans, and Copepods in Lake Tondano, Indonesia. A total of 21 species of cladocerans, 31 copepods, and 60 rotifers were identified from Lake Tondano. Our result indicates a relatively low number of cladocerans which is may be associated with high predatory pressure from planktivorous fish, especially within the open pelagic zone.

Composition, Distribution, and Biodiversity of Zooplanktons in Tropical Lentic Ecosystems with Different Environmental Conditions

“…L −1 ) but diversity (H' = 2.2 ± 0.0) was significantly higher (p < 0.05) compared to artificial lakes. Zooplankton diversity recorded in this study was higher compared to the zooplankton diversity in Tondano Lake, Indonesia (H' = 1.73-1.85) [41], and in several urban lakes in Malaysia (H' = 1.41-2.34) [22]. However, zooplankton diversity was low compared to the zooplankton diversity in Ulansuhai Lake, China (H' = 2.75) [17].…”

“…The number of zooplankton species recorded in this study was higher compared to the 45 zooplankton species found by Abd Razak and Sharip [22] and the 49 zooplankton species reported by Ismail et al [40] in Malaysian lakes. However, the number of zooplankton species obtained in this study was lower compared to the 112 zooplankton species in Tondano Lake, Indonesia [41], and the 65 zooplankton species in Baiyangdian Lake, China [42]. Rotifers, in general, represent the main contributors to the zooplankton density and diversity in freshwater ecosystems [7,43,44].…”

“…This factor contributed to the high density of zooplankton in both waterbodies. Previous studies also reported that the abundance of zooplankton in eutrophic waters was associated with chlorophyll a, indicating that high phytoplankton biomass could support the growth of zooplankton [41,64,71] (Table 5). High zooplankton densities found in reservoirs and constructed lakes/ponds were also correlated with turbidity.…”