scholarly journals Functional and taxonomic biogeography of phytoplankton and zooplankton communities in relation to environmental variation across the contiguous USA

2020 ◽  
Vol 42 (2) ◽  
pp. 141-157 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elder De Oliveira Sodré ◽  
Alexandre Langlais-Bourassa ◽  
Amina I Pollard ◽  
Beatrix E Beisner
Keyword(s):  
Aquatic Ecosystems ◽  
Environmental Variables ◽  
Environmental Drivers ◽  
Taxonomic Resolution ◽  
Anthropogenic Activity ◽  
Genus Level ◽  
Environmental Responses ◽  
Zooplankton Communities ◽  
Plankton Communities ◽  
Planktonic Communities

Abstract For biomonitoring of aquatic ecosystems, the use of coarse group classifications, either taxonomic or functional, has been proposed as an alternative to more highly resolved taxonomic identification. We tested this proposition for phytoplankton and zooplankton using a pan-United States dataset, which also allows us to investigate biogeographic relationships between plankton groups and environmental variables. We used data from 1010 lakes composing the 2012 US National Lakes Assessment and compared relationships derived using genus-level, more aggregated taxonomic resolution and functional types. We examined responses nationally and by ecoregion. Differences in plankton assemblages among ecoregions were detected, especially at genus-level classification. Our analyses show a gradient of altitude and temperature influencing both phytoplankton and zooplankton, and another gradient of nutrients and anthropogenic activity influencing mostly phytoplankton. The overall variation in the planktonic communities explained by environmental variables ranged from 4 to 22%, but together indicated that aggregated taxonomic classification performed better for phytoplankton; for zooplankton, the performance of different classification types depended on the ecoregion. Our analyses also revealed linkages between particular phytoplankton and zooplankton groups, mainly attributable to similar environmental responses and trophic interactions. Overall, the results support the applicability of coarse classifications to infer general responses of plankton communities to environmental drivers.

scholarly journals Aquatic Ecosystems of the Anthropocene: Limnology and Microbial Ecology of Mine Pit Lakes

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (6) ◽  
pp. 1207
Author(s):  
Melanie L. Blanchette ◽  
Mark A. Lund
Keyword(s):  
Water Quality ◽  
Aquatic Ecosystems ◽  
Environmental Variables ◽  
Microbial Community Composition ◽  
Monitoring Program ◽  
Environmental Drivers ◽  
The Public ◽  
Pit Lakes ◽  
Public Consciousness ◽  
Australian Coal

Mine pit lakes (‘pit lakes’) are new aquatic ecosystems of the Anthropocene. Potentially hundreds of meters deep, these lakes are prominent in the landscape and in the public consciousness. However, the ecology of pit lakes is underrepresented in the literature. The broad goal of this research was to determine the environmental drivers of pelagic microbe assemblages in Australian coal pit lakes. The overall experimental design was four lakes sampled three times, top and bottom, in 2019. Instrument chains were installed in lakes and measurements of in situ water quality and water samples for metals, metalloids, nutrients and microbe assemblage were collected. Lakes were monomictic and the timing of mixing was influenced by high rainfall events. Water quality and microbial assemblages varied significantly across space and time, and most taxa were rare. Lakes were moderately saline and circumneutral; Archeans were not prevalent. Richness also varied by catchment. Microbial assemblages correlated to environmental variables, and no one variable was consistently significant, spatially or temporally. Study lakes were dominated by ‘core’ taxa exhibiting temporal turnover likely driven by geography, water quality and interspecific competition, and the presence of water chemistry associated with an artificial aquifer likely influenced microbial community composition. Pit lakes are deceptively complex aquatic ecosystems that host equally complex pelagic microbial communities. This research established links between microbial assemblages and environmental variables in pit lakes and determined core communities; the first steps towards developing a monitoring program using microbes.

scholarly journals HYDROBIOLOGICAL STUDIES OF PLANKTON COMMUNITIES OF MAKHACHKALA SEAPORT

2019 ◽  
pp. 12-18
Author(s):  
Magomed Magomedovich OSMANOV ◽  
Frangiz Shamilievna AMAEVA ◽  
Ayshat Abdulmajidovna ABDURAKHMANOVA
Keyword(s):  
Aquatic Organisms ◽  
Water Area ◽  
Acartia Tonsa ◽  
Anthropogenic Influence ◽  
The Caspian Sea ◽  
Spring Period ◽  
Brackish Water Species ◽  
Water Species ◽  
Plankton Communities ◽  
Planktonic Communities

The article presents data from spring hydrobiological studies in the Makhachkala l Seaport during the period of dredging. It is noted that plankton of the studied water area of the Caspian Sea is a typical community of the spring period, formed mainly by marine and brackish-water species of phytoplankton and zooplankton. Diatoms mainly dominate in phytoplankton, and Copepods in zooplankton, where the main dominant is the Azov-Black sea invader Acartia tonsa Dana,1843. The analysis of planktonic communities indicates a rather developed quantitative and qualitative community of aquatic organisms with a characteristic abundance of species inhabiting it in the spring, despite a significant anthropogenic influence. It is established that the ongoing dredging operations do not have a tangible effect on the productivity of planktonic organisms.

scholarly journals Rates and drivers of Red Sea plankton community metabolism

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daffne C. López-Sandoval ◽  
Katherine Rowe ◽  
Paloma Carillo-de-Albonoz ◽  
Carlos M. Duarte ◽  
Susana Agusti
Keyword(s):  
Red Sea ◽  
Gross Primary Production ◽  
Environmental Drivers ◽  
Community Respiration ◽  
Net Community Production ◽  
Chl A ◽  
Warm Environment ◽  
Increasing Temperature ◽  
Community Production ◽  
Planktonic Communities

Abstract. Resolving the environmental drivers shaping planktonic communities is fundamental to understanding their variability, present and future, across the ocean. More specifically, resolving the temperature-dependence of planktonic communities in low productive waters is essential to predict the response of marine ecosystems to warming scenarios, as ocean warming leads to oligotrophication of the subtropical ocean. Here we quantified plankton metabolic rates along the Red Sea, a unique oligotrophic and warm environment, and analysed the drivers that regulate gross primary production (GPP), community respiration (CR) and the net community production (NCP). The study was conducted on six oceanographic surveys following a north-south transect along Saudi Arabian coasts. Our findings revealed that Chl-a specific GPP and CR rates increased with increasing temperature (R2 = 0.41 and 0.19, respectively, P 

Environmental drivers of a decline in a coastal zooplankton community

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Seòna R Wells ◽  
Eileen Bresnan ◽  
Kathryn Cook ◽  
Dafne Eerkes-Medrano ◽  
Margarita Machairopoulou ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Zooplankton Community ◽  
Water Masses ◽  
Environmental Drivers ◽  
High Temporal Resolution ◽  
Monitoring Site ◽  
Zooplankton Abundance ◽  
Offshore Water ◽  
Additive Mixed Models ◽  
Zooplankton Communities

Abstract Major changes in North Atlantic zooplankton communities in recent decades have been linked to climate change but the roles of environmental drivers are often complex. High temporal resolution data is required to disentangle the natural seasonal drivers from additional sources of variability in highly heterogeneous marine systems. Here, physical and plankton abundance data spanning 2003–2017 from a weekly long-term monitoring site on the west coast of Scotland were used to investigate the cause of an increasing decline to approximately -80± 5% in annual average total zooplankton abundance from 2011 to 2017. Generalized additive mixed models (GAMMs), with an autoregressive correlation structure, were used to examine seasonal and inter-annual trends in zooplankton abundance and their relationship with environmental variables. Substantial declines were detected across all dominant taxa, with ∼ 30–70% of the declines in abundance explained by a concurrent negative trend in salinity, alongside the seasonal cycle, with the additional significance of food availability found for some taxa. Temperature was found to drive seasonal variation but not the long-term trends in the zooplankton community. The reduction in salinity had the largest effect on several important taxa. Salinity changes could partly be explained by locally higher freshwater run-off driven by precipitation as well as potential links to changes in offshore water masses. The results highlight that changes in salinity, caused by either freshwater input (expected from climate predictions) or fresher offshore water masses, may adversely impact coastal zooplankton communities and the predators that depend on them.

scholarly journals Ecological studies of mayflies (Insecta, Ephemeroptera): Can sampling effort be reduced without losing essential taxonomic and ecological information?

2018 ◽  
Vol 48 (2) ◽  
pp. 137-145 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yulie SHIMANO ◽  
Mylena CARDOSO ◽  
Leandro JUEN
Keyword(s):  
Species Composition ◽  
Species Abundance ◽  
Taxonomic Resolution ◽  
Sampling Effort ◽  
Ecological Information ◽  
Genus Level ◽  
Level Data ◽  
Group A ◽  
Species Richness And Abundance ◽  
Laboratory Time

ABSTRACT The present study evaluated the potential for the reduction of sampling effort in studies of ephemeropteran nymphs in Brazilian Amazon streams, Pará State, Brazil, without the loss of ecological information (species composition, abundance, and richness), and the congruence of different levels of taxonomic resolution (morphospecies, genus, family and functional group). Test groups of 15, 10 and five subsamples were selected from the 20 subsamples collected per stream (40 streams sampled), and were compared in terms of their species richness and abundance (ANOVA), and composition (Procrustes). Taxonomic resolution was also analyzed in Procrustes. Species abundance (F(3, 156) = 25.426; p < 0.001) and richness (F(3, 156) = 13.866, p < 0.001) varied significantly among sample groups, while the results of the 15-S group were statistically similar, in both cases, to those of the 20-S group. A similar pattern was found for species composition. The genus-level taxonomic resolution produced results 99% similar to those found for the species-level data. The results indicate that the reduction in sampling effort from 20 to 15 subsamples per site and a genus-level taxonomic resolution would not affect the reliability of analyses significantly. A reduction of five samples per site would result in a decrease of effort in the field and the amount of material to be processed, reducing laboratory time. In addition to a reduction in the time and resources needed to identify specimens, the adoption of a genus-level taxonomic resolution could help minimize errors of under- or over-estimation in the processing of the results.

scholarly journals Zooplankton of a stressed area in the Damietta coast of the Mediterranean Sea

2017 ◽  
Vol 58 (2) ◽  
pp. 245-260 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wael S. Eltohamy ◽  
Ahmad Alzeny ◽  
Yasmine A. M. Azab
Keyword(s):  
Community Structure ◽  
Mediterranean Sea ◽  
Ballast Water ◽  
Environmental Variables ◽  
Species Invasions ◽  
The Mediterranean ◽  
June July ◽  
Zooplankton Communities ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Univariate Analyses

The spatial pattern of zooplankton communities at Damietta coast, southeastern Mediterranean was studied to assess the impact of human activities on the abundance and community structure. Twenty-five stations from five different stressed sites were sampled in June-July 2014. Thirty-four zooplankton taxa were recorded, in addition to the larvae of copepods and meroplankton. Copepoda was the most abundant group among which, Oithona nana, Euterpina acutifrons, and Parvocalanus cirrostratus were the most frequent. The calanoid copepod Pseudodiaptomus trihamatus is a new record for the Mediterranean Sea that may have been introduced via ballast water. Multivariate/Univariate analyses demonstrated that 1) the environmental variables and zooplankton communities represented significant differences among five sites; 2) the spatial variations of community structure were undoubtedly due to land-based effluents; and 3) among all environmental variables, salinity and phytoplankton biomass had the major determining effects on the spatial patterns of zooplankton categories. The results indicates that not only the discharged water makes the Damietta coast at risk, but also the ballast water is not less dangerous. Hence, we emphasize the need for activation of the ballast water management to reduce the risk of future species invasions.

scholarly journals Dynamics of Cyanobacteria and Related Environmental Drivers in Freshwater Bodies Affected by Mitten Crab Culturing: A Study of Lake Guchenghu, China

Water ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (12) ◽  
pp. 2468
Author(s):  
Hongmin Li ◽  
Huihui Chen ◽  
Xiaohong Gu ◽  
Zhigang Mao ◽  
Qingfei Zeng ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Variables ◽  
Phytoplankton Biomass ◽  
Dominant Species ◽  
N:P Ratio ◽  
Water Bodies ◽  
Environmental Drivers ◽  
Mitten Crab ◽  
Total Phytoplankton ◽  
Freshwater Bodies ◽  
Harmful Species

Mitten crab aquaculture is prevalent in China, however, knowledge about the threat of cyanobacteria in mitten crab aquaculture-impacted water bodies is limited. Here, seasonal variations of cyanobacteria and their relationships with environmental factors were investigated for Lake Guchenghu area. Results suggested the changes of cyanobacteria community in crab ponds distinguished from the adjacent lake. In the lake, cyanobacterial biomass (3.86 mg/L, 34.6% of the total phytoplankton) was the highest in autumn with the dominance of Oscillatoria, Aphanocapsa and Pesudanabaena. By contrast, in crab ponds, cyanobacteria (46.80 mg/L, 97.2% of the total phytoplankton biomass) were the most abundant in summer when Pesudanabaena and Raphidiopsis were the dominant species. Of particular note was that obviously higher abundance of filamentous and potentially harmful species (e.g., Raphidiopsis raciborskii and Dolichospermum circinale) were observed in ponds compared to the lake. Specifically, water depth (WD), permanganate index (CODMn), total phosphorus (TP), N:P ratio, and NO 2 −-N were the key environmental variables affected cyanobacteria composition. For crab ponds, N:P ratio, water temperature (WT) and TP were the potential environmental drivers of cyanobacteria development. This study highlighted the fact that mitten crab culture had non-negligible influences on the cyanobacteria community and additional attention should be paid to the cyanobacteria dynamics in mitten crab culture-impacted water bodies, especially for those potentially harmful species.

scholarly journals Taxonomy-based differences in feeding guilds of fish

2019 ◽  
Vol 66 (1) ◽  
pp. 51-56
Author(s):  
Javier Sánchez-Hernández
Keyword(s):  
Trophic Ecology ◽  
Feeding Habits ◽  
Empirical Support ◽  
Taxonomic Resolution ◽  
Feeding Guilds ◽  
Generic Level ◽  
Taxonomic Relatedness ◽  
Genus Level ◽  
Marine Vs Freshwater ◽  
And Behavior

Abstract It has been taken for granted that feeding guilds and behavior in animals are linked to the taxonomic relatedness of species, but empirical evidence supporting such relationship is virtually missing. To examine the importance of taxonomy on trophic ecology, I here present the first well-resolved dietary taxonomy analysis based on feeding guilds (predation, herbivory, and filtering) among families and genera within the fish order Perciformes. Taxonomic relatedness in feeding did not vary with ecosystem dimension (marine vs. freshwater). Although predation dominates among Perciformes fishes, this study shows that in most cases taxonomic units (family or genus) are composed by species with several feeding guilds. Related species are more similar in feeding compared with species that are taxonomically more distant, demonstrating that there is a greater variation of feeding guilds within families than genera. Thus, there is no consistency in feeding guilds between family- and genus-level taxonomy. This study provides empirical support for the notion that genera are more informative than families, underlining that family-level taxonomy should be avoided to infer feeding habits of fish species at finer taxonomic resolution. Thus, the choice of taxonomic resolution (family or genus level) in ecological studies is key to avoid information loss and misleading results. I conclude that high-rank taxonomic units (i.e., above the generic level) are not appropriate to test research hypotheses about the feeding of fish.

Habitat type richness associations with environmental variables: a case study in the Greek Natura 2000 aquatic ecosystems

2011 ◽  
Vol 20 (5) ◽  
pp. 929-943 ◽  
Author(s):  
Evangelia G. Drakou ◽  
Athanasios S. Kallimanis ◽  
Antonios D. Mazaris ◽  
Evangelia Apostolopoulou ◽  
John D. Pantis
Keyword(s):  
Aquatic Ecosystems ◽  
Environmental Variables ◽  
Habitat Type ◽  
Natura 2000
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