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

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 (Jinan 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.

Keywords: Microcystis; Stable Isotope Mixing Model; Terrestrial Carbon.