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Extensive Carbon Contribution of Inundated Terrestrial Plants to Zooplankton Biomass in a Eutrophic Lake

  • Microbiology of Aquatic Systems
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Abstract

Organic carbon derived from terrestrial plants contributes to aquatic consumers, e.g., zooplankton in lakes. The degree of the contribution depends on the availability of terrestrial organic carbon in lake organic pool and the transfer efficiency of the carbon. Terrestrial organic carbon is poor-quality food for zooplankton with a mismatch of nutrition content and was incorporated to zooplankton with much lower efficiency than phytoplankton. Contributions of terrestrial carbon to zooplankton generally decrease with an increase in phytoplankton production, indicating a preferential incorporation of phytoplankton in previous investigations. However, in eutrophic lakes, the dominating cyanobacteria were of poor quality and incorporated to consumers inefficiently too. In that case, zooplankton in eutrophic wetlands, where cyanobacteria dominate the phytoplankton production and massive terrestrial plants are inundated, may not preferentially incorporate poor food-quality phytoplankton resource to their biomass. Therefore, we hypothesize that carbon contributions of terrestrial vegetation to zooplankton and to lake particulate organic pool should be similar in such aquatic ecosystems. We tested this hypothesis by sampling zooplankton and carbon sources in Ming Lake (**an University Campus, southern China) which was overgrown by terrestrial plants after drying and re-flooded. After 60 days of observations at weekly (or biweekly) intervals, applying stable carbon (13C), nitrogen (15 N), and hydrogen (2H) isotopic analysis and a stable isotope mixing model, we estimated the occurrence of extensive carbon contribution (≥ 50%) of flooded terrestrial plants to cladocerans and copepods. Contribution of inundated terrestrial plants to cladocerans was similar to that to lake particulate organic pool. Thus, our study quantified the role of terrestrial carbon in eutrophic wetlands, enhancing our understanding of cross-ecosystem interactions in food webs with an emphasis on the resource quality.

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Acknowledgements

We are grateful for the work of numerous participants who collected and analyzed samples during the period of experiment.

Funding

National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 32071566) and Natural Science Foundation of Guangdong Province (No. 2022A1515011074) supported this study financially.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Ecology, **an University, Guangzhou, 510632, China

    Yali Tang, Sirui Wang, **aotong **, Daiying Zhou, Qiuqi Lin, Zhengwen Liu, **ufeng Zhang & Henri J. Dumont

  2. Engineering Research Center of Tropical and Subtropical Aquatic Ecological Engineering, Ministry of Education, Guangzhou, 510632, China

    Yali Tang, Zhengwen Liu & **ufeng Zhang

  3. State Key Lab. of Lake and Environment, Nan**g Institute of Geography and Limnology, Nan**g, 210008, China

    Zhengwen Liu

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  1. Yali Tang
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Contributions

Conceptualization: Zhengwen Liu, **ufeng Zhang and Yali Tang. Methodology: Sirui Wang, Daiying Zhou, **aotong **, Qiuqi Lin, **ufeng Zhang, Henri J. Dumont, and Yali Tang. Writing–original draft preparation: Yali Tang. Writing–review and editing: Yali Tang, Zhengwen Liu, **ufeng Zhang, Daiying Zhou, **aotong **, Sirui Wang, Qiuqi Lin and Henri J. Dumont.

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Tang, Y., Wang, S., **, X. et al. Extensive Carbon Contribution of Inundated Terrestrial Plants to Zooplankton Biomass in a Eutrophic Lake. Microb Ecol 86, 163–173 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00248-022-02089-3

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