Stephen T. Threlkeld

The organization of zooplankton epibiont communities.

Recent findings suggest that a diverse set of interactions exists between crustacean zooplankton and the algae, protozoans and metazoans that live attached to them. The frequent molting of the crustacean exoskeleton keeps these epibiont populations in a state of constant renewal and makes this epibiont community an ideal experimental system for examining the organization of communities whose populations are distributed among ephemeral habitat patches.

Lake trophic state and the limnological effects of omnivorous fish

Ecologists have hypothesized that planktivorous fish have greater effects on the plankton and water quality of oligotrophic lakes than eutrophic lakes. We tested this hypothesis in a tank-mesocosm experiment of factorial design in which five biomass levels of filter-feeding omnivorous gizzard shad (Dorosoma cepedianum) were cross-classified with two levels of lake trophic state achieved by filling tank-mesocosms with water and plankton transported by truck from two lakes with different trophic states. The presence of gizzard shad significantly increased total phosphorus, primary productivity, chlorophyll, and particulate phosphorus (PP) 2–20 and 20–200 µm and significantly decreased Secchi depth, cladocerans, copepods and PP > 200 µm. The effects of gizzard shad on chlorophyll, Secchi depth, cladocerans, copepods and PP 2–20 and > 200 µm were dependent on lake trophic state and most intense in the eutrophic lake system. This experiment suggests that filter-feeding omnivorous fish interact synergistically with trophic state so that the limnological effects of omnivorous fish become more intense with increased eutrophication.

Fish interactions with the sediment-water interface

In two mesocosm experiments of cross-classified design, using sixteen 900-liter containers, we measured how benthivorous, omnivorous, and planktivorous fish interact with the sediment-water interface to influence planktonic and benthic production. Experiment 1 used three fish treatments (Ictalurus punctatus, Notemigonus crysoleucas, Lepomis macrochirus) and a fishless control in the presence or absence of a natural pond sediment layer. The benthivorous Ictalurus enhanced turbidity but had no effects on dissolved oxygen, diel changes in dissolved oxygen, pH, or nutrient concentrations. All parameters measured were unaffected by the planktivorous Notemigonus. Experiment 2 compared Ictalurus nebulosus with those of other benthivorous (Cyprinus carpio) and omnivorous (Dorosoma cepedianum) fish, again in the presence or absence of a sediment layer but at a higher stocking density than experiment 1. In the second experiment, Dorosoma enhanced dissolved oxygen levels but had no effect on turbidity while Cyprinus and Ictalurus enhanced turbidity but suppressed dissolved oxygen. Nitrogen concentrations in sediment tubs were enhanced by Cyprinus and Ictalurus but nitrogen concentrations in sediment-free tubs were enhanced by Dorosoma. This would suggest that the benthivores affected nutrient levels through resuspension of sediments while omnivores affected nutrient levels through physiological processes.

Nitrogen deficiency, phosphorus sufficiency, and the invasion of Lake Kinneret, Israel, by the N2-fixing cyanobacterium Aphanizomenon ovalisporum

Abstract: Historically, the phytoplankton community of Lake Kinneret, Israel, has been dominated by the dinoflagellate Peridinium gatunense and other edible species that are important in the lakes food web. However, major changes have occurred both in external nutrient loading and in the water column chemistry of the lake since the mid-1980s. Epilimnetic particulate nitrogen: particulate phosphorous (PN : PP) ratios have declined, and measurements of seston chemistry suggest that the intensity of seasonal nitrogen limitation has increased. The phytoplankton community also was altered in 1994 and 1995 by a lake-wide summer invasion of the nitrogen-fixing cyanobacterium Aphanizomenon ovalisporum. This abrupt change in phytoplankton community structure is consistent with the development of conditions increasingly N-deficiency and P-sufficiency in the water column, which should favor cyanobacterial dominance.

Spatial and temporal variation in the summer zooplankton community of a riverine reservoir

Zooplankton community structure was examined at five stations in Normandy Reservoir, Tennessee, on six dates from 11 July to 15 September 1980. Four physical and chemical parameters at three depths at each station were used to discriminate statistically among areas of the reservoir over time; a similar analysis based on nine taxonomic and ecological categories of zooplankton was also completed. Each of the two multi-variate analyses provided a matrix of similarities among station-times (n = 30) in the reservoir. The two similarity matrices were compared by the Mantel test and were found to be not significantly concordant, suggesting that physical-chemical variation among areas in the reservoir during the summer months was not precisely reflected by zooplankton community structure.The lack of congruence between physically- and chemically-determined reservoir structure and structure implied by zooplankton taxa or functional groups was also observed in the results of a random-effects-model ANOVA of physical and chemical parameters and zooplankton densities. ANOVA of zooplankton densities revealed that spatial variation was generally greater than temporal variation, although most of the spatial variation was ephemeral (station-time interaction) rather than fixed (station effects). An ANOVA of physical and chemical variables revealed considerable fixed spatial variation over the same time scale.

Size dependent horizontal migration ofMysis relicta

Quantitative seasonal population estimates ofMysis relicta at shallow and deep stations in Emerald Bay, an isolated (forMysis) embayment of Lake Tahoe, California-Nevada, Donner Lake and Fallen Leaf Lake show thatM. relicta exhibits size dependent horizontal migrations. Adults inhabit deep water where they release young in early spring. The newly released juveniles migrate to shallow water where they remain until late summer when they return to deep water. Adults stay in deep water throughout the year.

Author-supported open access inEstuaries and Coasts

Estuaries and Coasts begins a three-year trial period with this issue in which authors can, by paying an open access fee, have their articles available online to all viewers. Because journals cannot rely of continuing subscription revenues if their articles are already freely available online, open access fees will be expected to cover the costs of production so that the journal will remain financially viable even when subscription revenues are no longer present. Our transition from a subscription-based budget to one in which open access fees cover production costs will include fee discounts for authors who are members of the Estuarine Research Federation and whose institutions have current subscriptions to the journal in recognition that these sources of revenue now support publication of the journal.

Benthic-pelagic interactions in shallow water columns: an experimentalist’s perspective

Shallow water column benthic and pelagic communities are thought to be linked by trophic relationships, through life history or ontogenetic links, and by biologically or physically-mediated resuspension or sedimentation processes. It is often confusing and sometimes misleading to focus only on benthic or only on pelagic components of aquatic food webs, even though the literature on shallow water column experiments contains few experiments that give a balanced view of these components, or interactions between components in different habitats. The rarity of balanced experiments is especially troublesome because the most common types of manipulations in shallow water column experiments (fish and nutrients) often have rapid, direct effects on both kinds of habitats, or easily recognized indirect links between the two habitats that go unevaluated. Despite a large experimental literature on pelagic and benthic foodwebs (with less on both in the same systems), there appears to be continuing uncertainty about the importance to pelagic productivity of nutrients released from resuspended sediments, the role of macrobenthos in controlling plankton, and the efficacy and interaction of trophic cascades between pelagic and benthic communities.

Effects of mineral turbidity on freshwater plankton communities: Three exploratory tank experiments of factorial design

We conducted three exploratory experiments of factorial design on the effects of mineral turbidity in 18 large (7 000 1) fiberglass tanks containing plankton communities derived from Lake Texoma (Oklahoma-Texas), a large reservoir often subject to turbid inflows. Replicate plankton communities developed for 30–45 d in response to 4–9 treatments of planktivorous fish, dead fish, nutrient additions and artificial removal of zooplankton with plankton netting (or combinations of these manipulations). In one experiment we then added three concentrations of kaolin and in the other two experiments we added bentonite or powdered silica to the replicate tank communities. We measured the responses of the diverse plankton communities to the addition of mineral turbidity for an additional period of 30–45 d.Effects of introduced minerals (quality or concentration effects) and food web treatments after mineral addition (fish, nutrients, etc.) were determined by analysis of covariance after observations were adjusted for the value of each response variable at the time of mineral addition. Covariance analysis resulted in a statistical model explaining > 80% of the variance for most response variables. The values of response variables at the time of mineral addition were often the most important source of variation, suggesting the importance of biotic community resiliency to the effects of mineral turbidity. There were few effects of mineral particles on physical or chemical (temperature, conductivity, oxygen, pH), nutrient (nitrate, phosphate, alkalinity) or biotic (algal or zooplankton populations) components of the tank communities. Mineral effects were found for several measures of water clarity (Secchi depth, turbidity, and the concentration of small sestonic particles).

Rotifers, cladocerans and planktivorous fish: What are the major interactions?

Results of ten outdoor tank experiments on the effects of two kinds of planktivorous fish (Dorosoma cepedianum and Menidia beryllina ) on phytoplankton and zooplankton were reviewed for evidence of rotifercladoceran interactions. Correlation and multiple regression analyses of the responses of populations of six rotifer species in ten experiments were examined for evidence of interference competition with daphnids, resource exploitation, or invertebrate predation by crustaceans associated with daphnid-dominated communities. A separate enclosure experiment was conducted to assess the potential for short-term effects of dense daphnid populations on four rotifer populations. Indirect resource-mediated effects on rotifer populations associated with manipulations of planktivorous fish were more numerous and consistently expressed than direct negative effects of cladocerans or copepods on rotifer populations.