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JOURNAL OF PLANKTON RESEARCH | VOLUME 20 | NUMBER 9 | PAGES 1663-1678 | 1998
© Oxford University Press

research-article

Changes in the structure of a zooplankton community during a Ceratium (dinoflagellate) bloom in a eutrophic fishless pond

P. Xie, T. Iwakuma1 and K. Fujii2

Institute of Hydrobiology, The Chinese Academy of Sciences Wuhan, 430072, China 1National Institute for Environmental Studies Onogawa 16-2, Tsukuba, Ibaraki 305 2Institute of Biological Sciences, University of Tsukuba Tsukuba, Ibaraki 305, Japan

Received on February 27, 1998; accepted on April 23, 1998 The community structure of zooplankton was studied in a eutrophic, fishless Japanese pond. The ecosystem was dominated by a dinoflagellate, Ceratium hirundinella, two filter-feeding clado-cerans, Daphnia rosea and Ceriodaphnia reticulata, and an invertebrate predator, the dipteran Chaoborus flavicans. The midsummer zooplankton community showed a large change in species composition (the Daphnia population crashed) when a heavy Ceratium bloom occurred. It is shown that (i) the rapid density decline of D.rosea in mid-May was mainly caused by a shortage of edible phytoplankton, which was facilitated by the rapid increase in Chirundinella abundance; (ii) the low density of D.rosea in June-July was considered to be mainly caused by the blooming of Ceratium hirundinella (which may inhibit the feeding process of D.rosea), while predation by Cflavicans larvae, the changing temperature, the interspecific competition and the scarcity of edible algae were not judged to be important; (iii) the high summer biomass of the planktonic Cflavicans larvae was maintained by the bloom of C.hirundinella, because >90% of the crop contents of C.flavicans larvae were C.hirundinella during this period. The present study indicates that the large-sized cells or colonies of phytoplankton are not only inedible by most cladocerans, but the selective effect of the blooming of these algae can also influence the composition and dominance of the zooplankton community, especially for the filter-feeding Cladocera, in a similar way as the selective predation by planktivorous fish. The large-sized phytoplankton can also be an important alternative food for ominivorous invertebrate predators such as Chaoborus larvae, and thus may affect the interactions between these predators and their zooplanktonic prey. In this way, such phytoplankton may play a very important role in regulating the dynamics of the aquatic food web, and become a driving force in shaping the community structure of zooplankton.


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C. Perez-Martinez and P. Sanchez-Castillo
Winter dominance of Ceratiumhirundinella in a southernnorth-temperate reservoir
J. Plankton Res., February 1, 2002; 24(2): 89 - 96.
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