Search

Highlights • Sufficient protozoan food may enhance larval growth in the beginning of the exogenous feeding. • Ciliates represent essentially important food for fish larvae in both marine and lacustrine environments. • In the sea and in one lake ciliates formed respectively 36 and 63% of the total carbon biomass ingested by larval fish. • Consumption of ciliates is linked to their availability in the environment — if abundances are high proportionally more ciliates are consumed. Abstract We estimated the consumption of planktonic ciliates by fish larvae in the Väinameri Sea (a shallow semi-enclosed bay of the Baltic Sea) and Lake Võrtsjärv (a shallow and eutrophic lake). Our primary hypothesis was that planktonic ciliates constitute a substantial component of the diet of fish larvae in both environments. We also assumed that the contribution of ciliates to larval nutrition is bigger in lacustrine than in marine environment because ciliates are usually more abundant in lakes. The nutrition of field collected larval fish was determined by gut content analysis using epifluorescence microscopy. Our study revealed that ciliates occurred in the alimentary tracts of all fish species examined. We discovered that the consumption of ciliates by first-feeding fish larvae contributed approximately 40 and 60% of their total consumed carbon in the Väinameri and in Võrtsjärv, respectively. Ciliates represent essentially important food for fish larvae and sufficient protozoan food may enhance larval growth in the beginning of the exogenous feeding and shorten the most vulnerable period in larval stage before shifting to larger prey. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We modeled energy transfer and trophic position of fish, plankton, and macroinvertebrates and the relative importance of top-down versus bottom-up processes in Lake Võrtsjärv, a large shallow eutrophic lake in Estonia (northeastern Europe). We employed input values based on 37 years of biomass and fishing activity monitoring for calibrating the Ecopath with Ecosim (EwE) model. Energy flows from primary producers and detritus, represented by total system throughput, were nearly equal (51 and 49%, respectively). Simulation revealed that top-down and bottom-up forces were at play, metazooplankton was not efficiently grazing phytoplankton production, and a trophic cascade proceeded through macroinvertebrates rather than through zooplankton. Detritivory was responsible for the relatively low trophic position of Võrtsjärv fish compared to other lakes. Bottom-up processes were the main drivers for the dual, primary production- and detritus-based pathways in energy flow. Our findings suggest that the predicted biomass increase of cyanobacteria in shallow lakes in the future will strengthen the reliance of consumers on the detrital pathway at the expense of the primary production pathway. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We analysed changes in the abundance, biomass and cell size of the microbial food web community (bacteria, heterotrophic nanoflagellates, ciliates) at contrasting nutrient concentrations and temperatures during a simulated heat wave. We used 24 mesocosms mimicking shallow lakes in which two nutrient levels (unenriched and enriched by adding nitrogen and phosphorus) and three different temperature scenarios (ambient, IPCC A2 scenario and A2+%50) are simulated (4 replicates of each). Experiments using the mesocosms have been running un-interrupted since 2003. A 1-month heat wave was imitated by an extra 5 °C increase in the previously heated mesocosms (from 1st July to 1st August 2014). Changes in water temperature induced within a few days a strong effect on the microbial food web functioning, demonstrating a quick response of microbial communities to the changes in environment, due to their short generation times. Warming and nutrients showed synergistic effects. Microbial assemblages of heterotrophic nanoflagellates and ciliates responded positively to the heating, the increase being largest in the enriched mesocosms. The results indicate that warming and nutrients in combination can set off complex interactions in the microbial food web functioning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Proceedings of the Estonian Academy of Sciences is the property of Teaduste Akadeemia Kirjastus and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Through cascading effects within lake food webs, commercial and recreational fisheries may indirectly affect the abundances of organisms at lower trophic levels, such as phytoplankton, even if they are not directly consumed. So far, interactive effects of fisheries, changing trophic state and climate upon lake ecosystems have been largely overlooked. Here we analyse case studies from five European lake basins of differing trophic states (Lake Võrtsjärv, two basins of Windermere, Lake Geneva and Lake Maggiore) with long-term limnological and fisheries data. Decreasing phosphorus concentrations (re-oligotrophication) and increasing water temperatures have been reported in all five lake basins, while phytoplankton concentration has decreased only slightly or even increased in some cases. To examine possible ecosystem-scale effects of fisheries, we analysed correlations between fish and fisheries data, and other food web components and environmental factors. Re-oligotrophication over different ranges of the trophic scale induced different fish responses. In the deeper lakes Geneva and Maggiore, we found a stronger link between phytoplankton and planktivorous fish and thus a more important cascading top-down effect than in other lakes. This connection makes careful ecosystem-based fisheries management extremely important for maintaining high water quality in such systems. We also demonstrated that increasing water temperature might favour piscivores at low phosphorus loading, but suppresses them at high phosphorus loading and might thus either enhance or diminish the cascading top-down control over phytoplankton with strong implications for water quality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Unfavorable environmental conditions-abiotic stress-constitute one of the key drivers of evolution leading to environmental adaptation. Since the start of industrial revolution, natural populations are also facing a new stress-global warming-that, in turn, leads to alteration of the severity of most of the existing stress factors and emergence of novel stress combinations. Biological adaptation to environmental perturbations occurs at all levels of biological organization, but the current knowledge on the role of adaptation in responses of ecosystems to global change is limited, especially concerning the interplay of climatic and chemical/pollutant stressors. Particularly limited is the understanding of how biological adaptation alters the performance of aquatic ecosystems that integrate the pollution and nutrient loads from large catchment areas. This review describes the responses, tolerance, acclimation, and adaptation of species at different levels of aquatic food chain to globally changing environmental drivers with emphasis on arctic to temperate ecosystems. The analysis highlights major variations in tolerance and in extent and speed of acclimation and adaptation to various environmental drivers within and among species and among species groups at different trophic levels. The variety of responses to novel stressors causes modifications in species composition and diversity and can lead to asynchronous peak activities of organisms at different trophic levels. All these effects are expected to profoundly alter the aquatic ecosystem productivity, resilience, and adaptation capacity and can ultimately modify the global feedbacks between ecosystem-level processes and environmental drivers. We argue that joint efforts of researchers working at different levels of biological organization are needed to understand and predict global change effects on various functional types of organisms and scale up from physiological responses to large-scale integrated ecosystem responses in future climates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Globally increasing temperature and modifications in precipitation patterns induce major environmental alterations in aquatic ecosystems. Particularly profound changes are predicted for arctic to temperate shallow lakes where modifications in temperature affect the distribution of ice and ice-free periods, thereby altering the timing of peak productivity, while changes in precipitation strongly alter water table depth with concomitant modifications in light distribution, temperature, and water chemistry, collectively altering the balance between primary production, organic matter consumption, and decomposition. Due to direct effects of temperature on primary productivity and microbial decomposition, raising temperatures alter the capacity of aquatic ecosystems for carbon sequestration and greenhouse gas release, and this affects atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations and temperature, implying a feedback loop between environmental effects on ecosystems and climate change. Moreover, elevated temperature can modify the bioavailability of pollutants deposited in the past, and increase the probability for their uptake by aquatic organisms. The latter processes in turn reduce primary productivity and alter microbial decomposition, creating thus another key feedback loop between productivity, climate change, and environmental pollutants. However, warming can also enhance eutrophication and deposition of pollutants in organic sediments, further speeding up productivity and eutrophication, with the overall net effects depending on the quantitative significance of different processes. Therefore, the feedbacks arising from pollution stress must be incorporated in models intending to predict the carbon balance of aquatic ecosystems under globally changing environmental conditions. Further work on carbon balance and greenhouse gas release of aquatic ecosystems should focus on quantitative characterization of the feedback loops operative, and on how global change affects these feedback loops. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]