Turning up the heat: warming influences plankton biomass and spring phenology in subtropical waters characterized by extensive fish omnivory

Date

2020-10-01

Author

He, Hu
Li, Qisheng
Li, Jing
Han, Yanqing
Cao, Yu
Liu, Wei
Yu, Jinlei
Li, Kuanyi
Liu, Zhengwen
Jeppesen, Erik

Metadata

Show full item record

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Item Usage Stats

267
views

0
downloads

Understanding how biological communities respond to climate change is a major challenge in ecology. The response of ectotherms to changes in temperature depends not only on their species-specific thermal tolerances but also on temperature-mediated interactions across different trophic levels. Warming is predicted to reinforce trophic cascades in linear aquatic food chains, but little is known about how warming might affect the lower trophic levels of food webs involving extensive fish omnivory, a common scenario in subtropical and tropical waterbodies. In this study, a mesocosm warming experiment was conducted involving a pelagic food chain (fish-zooplankton-phytoplankton) topped by the omnivorous bighead carp [Aristichthys nobilis(Richardson)]. We found that temperature elevation significantly enhanced the growth of fish and suppressed zooplankton, including both metazooplankton and ciliates, while abundances of phytoplankton, despite disruption of temporal dynamics, did not increase correspondingly-likely due to fish predation. Our results suggest that trophic cascades are less unlikely to be reinforced by warming in food chains involving significant omnivory. Moreover, we found that warming advanced the spring abundance peak of phytoplankton abundance and that of the parthenogenetic rotiferBrachionus quadridentatus; whereas, it had no effect on the only sexually reproducing copepod,Mesocyclops leuckarti, presumably due to its prolonged life history. Our study also confirmed that warming may lead to a phenological mismatch between some predators and their prey because of the distinct life histories among taxa, with potentially severe consequences for resource flow in the food chain, at least in the short term.

Subject Keywords

Warming, Plankton, Omnivory, Food chain, Phenology, Mismatch

URI

https://hdl.handle.net/11511/68534

Journal

OECOLOGIA

DOI

https://doi.org/10.1007/s00442-020-04758-x

Collections

Department of Biology, Article

Suggestions

OpenMETU
Core

EFFECTS OF DISSOLVED ORGANIC CARBON (DOC) AND ZOOPLANKTON GRAZING PRESSURE ON BACTERIA AND CILIATES Yetim, Sinem; Beklioğlu, Meryem; Ger, Kemal Ali; Department of Biology (2021-11-24) Global climate change results in extreme precipitation events that increase allochthonous organic matter (e.g., dissolved organic carbon, DOC) input into freshwater ecosystems via flooding. While DOC is a source of carbon and energy for heterotrophic organisms in freshwater ecosystems, its bottom-up effects on trophic interactions, and especially on the microbial food web, are poorly understood. Similarly, the top-down effect of contrasting zooplankton traits (i.e., generalist vs. selective) on DOC enriched...
Do interactions between eutrophication and CO2 enrichment increase the potential of elodeid invasion in tropical lakes? Mormul, Roger Paulo; Thomaz, Sidinei Magela; Jeppesen, Erik (Springer Science and Business Media LLC, 2020-09-01) Understanding the roles of eutrophication and CO2 enrichment in the invasive success of aquatic plants is an ecological challenge with relevance to climate change. We tested the hypotheses that (1) eutrophication of freshwaters increases the invasive success of the submersed aquatic plant Hydrilla verticillata; (2) CO2-enrichment makes freshwater systems more prone to H. verticillata invasion; and (3) interactions between eutrophication and CO2 enrichment increase the potential of H. verticillata invasion. ...
Environmental variability in aquatic ecosystems: Avenues for future multifactorial experiments Gerhard, Miriam; Koussoroplis, Apostolos-Manuel; Raatz, Michael; Pansch, Christian; Fey, Samuel B.; Vajedsamiei, Jahangir; Caldero-Pascual, Maria; Cunillera-Montcusi, David; Juvigny-Khenafou, Noel P. D.; Polazzo, Francesco; Thomas, Patrick K.; Symons, Celia C.; Beklioğlu, Meryem; Berger, Stella A.; Chefaoui, Rosa M.; Ger, Kemal Ali; Langenheder, Silke; Nejstgaard, Jens C.; Ptacnik, Robert; Striebel, Maren (2022-10-01) The relevance of considering environmental variability for understanding and predicting biological responses to environmental changes has resulted in a recent surge in variability-focused ecological research. However, integration of findings that emerge across studies and identification of remaining knowledge gaps in aquatic ecosystems remain critical. Here, we address these aspects by: (1) summarizing relevant terms of variability research including the components (characteristics) of variability and key i...
Climate Change Adaptation in Serbia: The Role of Information Networks Stupar, Aleksandra; Mihajlov, Vladimir (Middle East Technical University, Faculty of Architecture, 2016-6-1) The importance of problems caused by global warming and increased GHG emissions have been recognised by the international community which responded to this challenge through a growing number of studies, agreements and policies dealing with climate change prevention, mitigation and adaptation. The shift to green economy is confirmed as the highest development aim, while establishing a balanced relationship between environmental policies, economic efficiency, technological upgrading and behavioural transition...
Identifying determinants of pro-environmental behaviours : a case for climate change Hiğde, Emrah; Öztekin, Ceren; Department of Elementary Science and Mathematics Education (2014) The aim of the present study is in twofold: (1) to explore pre-service science teacher‘s knowledge about climate change, environmental attitudes (ecocentric and anthropocentric), epistemic beliefs regarding climate change, uncertainty beliefs about the reality of anthropogenic climate change and pro environmental behaviors towards climate change and (2) to investigate the significant determinants of pro-environmental behaviors towards climate change. Data collected from 1277 pre-service science teachers thr...

Citation Formats

H. He et al., “Turning up the heat: warming influences plankton biomass and spring phenology in subtropical waters characterized by extensive fish omnivory,” OECOLOGIA, pp. 251–265, 2020, Accessed: 00, 2020. [Online]. Available: https://hdl.handle.net/11511/68534.