Size-based interactions across trophic levels in food webs of shallow Mediterranean lakes

2017-11-01
Brucet, Sandra
Tavsanoglu, Ulku Nihan
Ozen, Arda
Levi, Eti Ester
Bezirci, Gizem
Cakiroglu, Ayse Idil
Jeppesen, Erik
Svenning, Jens-Christian
Ersoy, Zeynep
Beklioğlu, Meryem
1. Body size is a key trait of an organism which determines the dynamics of predator-prey interactions. Most empirical studies on the individual size distribution of the aquatic community have focused on the variations in body size of a single trophic level as a response to certain environmental variables or biotic factors. Few studies, however, have evaluated how individual size structure is altered simultaneously across interacting trophic levels and locations. Such comparative examinations of the size distribution in predator and prey communities may bring insight into the strength of the interactions between adjacent trophic levels.
FRESHWATER BIOLOGY

Suggestions

Determinants of phytoplankton size structure in warm, shallow lakes
Erdoğan, Şeyda; Beklioğlu, Meryem; Litchman, Elena; Miller, Elizabeth T.; Levi, Eti E.; Bucak, Tuba; Tavşanoǧlu, Ülkü Nihan (2021-05-01)
Body size is an important trait of any organism, including phytoplankton, because it affects physiological and morphological performance, reproduction, population growth rate and competitive interactions. Understanding how interacting top-down and bottom-up factors influence phytoplankton cell size in different aquatic environments is still a challenge. Structural equation modeling (SEM) is a comprehensive multivariate statistical tool for detecting cause-effect relationship among different variables and th...
Size diversity and species diversity relationships in fish assemblages of Western Palearctic lakes
Brucet, Sandra; Arranz, Ignasi; Mehner, Thomas; Argillier, Christine; Beklioğlu, Meryem; Benejam, Lluis; Boll, Thomas; Holmgren, Kerstin; Lauridsen, Torben L.; Svenning, Jens-Christian; Winfield, Ian J.; Jeppesen, Erik (2018-07-01)
Body size, coupled with abundance and taxonomy, may help to understand the mechanisms shaping community structure. Since the body size of fish is closely related to their trophic niche, size diversity (based on individual body size) of fish communities may capture intraspecific variations in fish trophic niches that are not detected by species diversity. Thus, the relationship between size diversity and species diversity may help to integrate variation at both intraspecific and interspecific levels. We stud...
Temperature effects on body size of freshwater crustacean zooplankton from Greenland to the tropics
Havens, Karl E.; Pinto-Coelho, Ricardo Motta; Beklioğlu, Meryem; Christoffersen, Kirsten S.; Jeppesen, Erik; Lauridsen, Torben L.; Mazumder, Asit; Methot, Ginette; Alloul, Bernadette Pinel; Tavsanoglu, U. Nihan; Erdogan, Seyda; Vijverberg, Jacobus (2015-01-01)
The body size of zooplankton has many substantive effects on the function of aquatic food webs. A variety of factors may affect size, and earlier studies indicate that water temperature may be a particularly important variable. Here we tested the hypothesis that the body size of cladocerans, calanoids, and cyclopoids declines with increasing water temperature, a response documented in an earlier study that considered only cladoceran zooplankton. We tested the hypothesis by comparing body size data that were...
Cross-taxon congruence in lake plankton largely independent of environmental gradients
Özkan, Korhan; Davidson, Thomas A; Sondergaard, Martin; Lauridsen, Torben L.; Bjerring, Rikke; Johansson, Liselotte S.; Svenning, Jens-Christian (2014-10-01)
Groups of organisms often have congruent patterns of diversity or community structure due to similar environmental requirements. However, ecological interactions across trophic levels may also promote congruence independent of environmental drivers through selective predation, niche partitioning, or facilitation. We examined congruence between phytoplankton and zooplankton communities using 20 years of monitoring data from 17 Danish lakes, most of which were subject to external nutrient loading reduction af...
Size-based diel migration of zooplankton in Mediterranean shallow lakes assessed from in situ experiments with artificial plants
Tavsanoglu, Ulku Nihan; Brucet, Sandra; Levi, Eti Ester; Bucak, Tuba; Bezirci, Gizem; Ozen, Arda; Johansson, Liselotte S.; Jeppesen, Erik; Beklioğlu, Meryem (2015-07-01)
In warm lakes, fish aggregate within macrophytes, thereby weakening the role of these as a daytime refuge for zooplankton and altering the zooplankton size structure, predation pressure, and water clarity. To elucidate the role of macrophytes as a refuge for zooplankton and their effect on zooplankton size distribution, we established three sets of strandardized artificial plant beds in 11 lakes in Turkey with contrasting fish predation risk and turbidity. Zooplankton were sampled within and outside of each...
Citation Formats
S. Brucet et al., “Size-based interactions across trophic levels in food webs of shallow Mediterranean lakes,” FRESHWATER BIOLOGY, pp. 1819–1830, 2017, Accessed: 00, 2020. [Online]. Available: https://hdl.handle.net/11511/35756.