Food sources and lipid retention of zooplankton in subarctic ponds
SUMMARY 1. Subarctic ponds are seasonal aquatic habitats subject to short summers but often have surprisingly numerous planktonic consumers relative to phytoplankton productivity. Because subarctic ponds have low pelagic productivity but a high biomass of benthic algae, we hypothesised that benthic mats provide a complementary and important food source for the zooplankton. To test this, we used a combination of fatty acid and stable isotope analyses to evaluate the nutritional content of benthic and pelagic food and their contributions to the diets of crustacean zooplankton in 10 Finnish subarctic ponds. 2. Benthic mats and seston differed significantly in total lipids, with seston (62.5 l …
Lipid-rich zooplankton subsidise the winter diet of benthivorous Arctic charr (Salvelinus alpinus) in a subarctic lake
Summary Generalist fish species commonly act as important links between littoral and pelagic habitats and food-web compartments in lakes. However, diet and habitat links may depend significantly on seasonal availability of, and qualitative differences between, littoral and pelagic prey and on fish size. Despite increasing interest in food-web dynamics, little is known about the seasonal changes in, or qualitative differences between, littoral and pelagic trophic pathways supporting generalist fish species in high-latitude lakes. We used stomach contents together with analyses of stable carbon and nitrogen isotopes and fatty acids to study the winter and summer diet of generalist Arctic char…
Seasonal shifts between autochthonous and allochthonous carbon contributions to zooplankton diets in a subarctic lake
We addressed the extent to which autochthonous and allochthonous carbon sources contribute to zooplankton diet throughout the year in oligotrophic subarctic Lake Saanajarvi. Optical measures of dissolved organic matter (DOM) indicated high water discharge and associated terrestrial DOM during winter and low inputs in summer. Bulk particulate organic matter (POM) showed d13C values consistent with allochthonous inputs of DOM. The most positive POM d13C values (227%) occurred during winter, when heterotrophic bacteria and nanoflagellates peaked in abundance; the isotopically lighter autotrophic phytoplankton shifted the POM d13 Ct o229% in summer. The d13C values of zooplankton were up to 4% …
Benthic mats offer a potential subsidy to pelagic consumers in tundra pond food webs
We quantified the potential nutritional contribution of benthic mats to pelagic consumers in tundra ponds using three approaches. (1) We compared benthic and pelagic habitats based on their algal biomass and community composition and assessed the dietary quality in terms of fatty acid (FA) concentrations in both habitats. The algal community compositions differed significantly between habitats. Both benthic and pelagic habitats contained saturated and unsaturated FAs, but on average there were more FAs relative to carbon in the pelagic habitat (44 6 29 m gm g C21) than the benthic habitat (23 6 18 m gm g C21) across all studied ponds. (2) We quantified the contribution of benthic mats to th…