Growth impacts of Saharan dust, mineral nutrients, and CO2 on a planktonic herbivore in southern Mediterranean lakes

Abstract

Rising levels of CO₂ can boost plant biomass but reduce its quality as a food source for herbivores. However, significant uncertainties remain as to the degree to which the effect is modulated by other environmental factors and the underlying processes causing these responses in nature. To address these questions, we carried out CO₂-manipulation experiments using natural seston from three lakes under nutrient-enriched conditions (mimicking eutrophication and atmospheric dust-input processes) as a food source for the planktonic Daphnia pulicaria. Contrary to expectations, there were no single effects of rising CO₂ on herbivorous growth. Instead, synergistic CO₂ × nutrient interactions indicated that CO₂ did not support higher zooplankton growth rates unless supplemented with dust or inorganic nutrients (nitrogen, N; phosphorus, P) in two of three studied lakes. The overall positive correlation between zooplankton growth and seston carbon (C), but not seston C:P, suggested that this was a food quantity-mediated response. In addition, we found that this correlation improved when the data were grouped according to the nutrient treatments, and that the response was largest for dust. The synergistic CO₂ × nutrient effects reported here imply that the effects of rising CO₂ levels on herbivorous growth may be strongly influenced by eutrophication processes and the increase in dust deposition predicted for the Mediterranean region.

Keywords: CO(2); Daphnia; Dust deposition; Growth rate; Interactive effects; Mineral nutrients.