TY - JOUR
T1 - Predicting the density of zooplankton subsidy to a stream with multiple impoundments using water quality parameters
AU - Ruhl, N.
AU - Ruggiero, D.
AU - Iuliucci, S.
AU - Grove, M.
AU - Richmond, C.
N1 - Publisher Copyright: © 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.
PY - 2023/1
Y1 - 2023/1
N2 - Damming a stream inserts a lentic system (an impoundment or reservoir) into a lotic system, changing downstream hydrological, biogeochemical, and ecological processes. One such ecological effect of damming is to create a resource subsidy of easily captured and consumed zooplankton, which are preyed upon by filter-feeders and visual predators. In this study, we sought to predict the density of lentic zooplankton subsidizing downstream habitats using water quality parameters as an alternative to microscopy. We monitored zooplankton subsidy from 4 polymictic reservoirs over 3 summers and assessed 22 water quality variables for their ability to predict subsidies, ultimately finding that about half (48.3%) of the variation in zooplankton subsidy can be predicted using the water quality variables we assessed. While this level of variation explained is not sufficient to replace traditional microscopy for quantifying zooplankton density, conductivity stood out as an important and potentially useful predictor of zooplankton subsidy, and so might be very useful as a screening tool for identifying lentic–lotic transitions with higher subsidies. We also detected three different water quality regimes (high conductivity, high-colored dissolved organic matter (CDOM), and a remaining category) during the study, with differences in the density of zooplankton among these water quality regimes, suggesting that the reservoir’s water quality does impact downstream zooplankton subsidy.
AB - Damming a stream inserts a lentic system (an impoundment or reservoir) into a lotic system, changing downstream hydrological, biogeochemical, and ecological processes. One such ecological effect of damming is to create a resource subsidy of easily captured and consumed zooplankton, which are preyed upon by filter-feeders and visual predators. In this study, we sought to predict the density of lentic zooplankton subsidizing downstream habitats using water quality parameters as an alternative to microscopy. We monitored zooplankton subsidy from 4 polymictic reservoirs over 3 summers and assessed 22 water quality variables for their ability to predict subsidies, ultimately finding that about half (48.3%) of the variation in zooplankton subsidy can be predicted using the water quality variables we assessed. While this level of variation explained is not sufficient to replace traditional microscopy for quantifying zooplankton density, conductivity stood out as an important and potentially useful predictor of zooplankton subsidy, and so might be very useful as a screening tool for identifying lentic–lotic transitions with higher subsidies. We also detected three different water quality regimes (high conductivity, high-colored dissolved organic matter (CDOM), and a remaining category) during the study, with differences in the density of zooplankton among these water quality regimes, suggesting that the reservoir’s water quality does impact downstream zooplankton subsidy.
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U2 - 10.1007/s00027-022-00931-x
DO - 10.1007/s00027-022-00931-x
M3 - Article
SN - 1015-1621
VL - 85
JO - Aquatic Sciences
JF - Aquatic Sciences
IS - 1
M1 - 29
ER -