Littoral zone structures as Daphnia refugia against fish predators

By R. Burks, Erik Jeppesen, David M. Lodge. 2001

167 citations recorded by the source corpus.

The assumption that macrophytes can provide zooplankton a daytime refuge against fish predation is central to the diel horizontal migration hypothesis. However, previous observations and experiments have shown that largeߚbodied zooplankton avoid macrophytes. To directly test these contrasting roles of macrophytes, we measured the reaction of Daphnia pulex to macrophytes (Elodea canadensis or plastic) in the presence and absence of chemical cues from two commonly occurring European fishes, roach (Rutilus rutilus) and perch (Perca fluvialitis). In the same series of laboratory experiments, we then tested the ability of different densities of E. canadensis and plastic macrophytes to reduce predation by roach or perch. In the absence of fish, only 27% of daphnids occurred in the macrophytes. However, 70–80% of daphnids occurred in the macrophytes when either roach or perch occurred. In addition, significantly more daphnids occurred in plastic versus real macrophytes, indicating that some chemically mediated avoidance of real macrophytes by Daphnia occurred. In the presence of fish chemical cues from either roach or perch, the differences between real and plastic macrophytes quickly disappeared as daphnids moved into macrophytes. However, this behavior decreased mortality only from roach predation, because perch spent significantly more time than roach foraging among macrophytes. Thus, although daphnids sought macrophyte refuge in the presence of both fishes, the effectiveness of the refuge depended on macrophyte density and predator identity. These results support the idea that macrophytes can increase survival of Daphnia populations in shallow lakes, depending on the fish species present.

Subfields: Environmental Chemistry, Nature and Landscape Conservation

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/59a2d2f358a22c293ece918f64714d2cf50e7d2c

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Citations in the corpus

Diel horizontal migration of zooplankton: costs and benefits of inhabiting the littoral (2002, background): “Direct predation on zooplankton by epiphytic and benthic invertebrates is thus a potentially large, and overlooked, cost of DHM (Burks et al., 2001a).”
Effects of structural heterogeneity provided by the floating macrophyte Eichhornia azurea on the predation efficiency and habitat use of the small Neotropical fish Moenkhausia sanctaefilomenae (2009, background): “Few experimental studies have formally tested the hypothesis that macrophytes provide refuge against predation for associated animals (but see Burks et al., 2001; Meerhoff et al. 2006, 2007a, b), mainly with fish‐invertebrate interactions.”
Diel changeover in sandbank fish assemblages in a neotropical floodplain river (2003, background): “In temperate systems, aquatic vegetation provides refuge from predation and food resources for algivorous and invertivorous fishes (Werner et al., 1983; Burke et al., 2001).”
Seasonal fluctuations in macrophyte cover and water transparency of four brown-water lakes: implications for crustacean zooplankton in littoral and pelagic habitats (2009, background): “In lakes, zooplankton often seek for refuges from littoral macrophyte vegetation when there is pressure of fish predation (e.g. Burks et al., 2001).”
Chemically induced anti-predator defences in plankton: a review (2004, background): “…interactions of inducible defences with the environment, might also exist for neckteeth in Daphnia (Jacobs, 1967; Tollrian & Dodson, 1999) and have been proposed for vertical migration behaviour (Dawidowicz & Loose, 1992; Loose & Dawidowicz, 1994) and for horizonzal migration (Burks et al., 2001b).”
Differential sensitivity of green algae to allelopathic substances from Chara (2004, unknown): “…for nutrients (Ozimek et al., 1990; van Donk et al., 1993) and light (Pokorný et al., 1984; Ozimek et al., 1990), enhancing denitri- fication (Weisner et al., 1994), or providing a refuge for zooplankton (Jeppesen et al., 1998a; Burks et al., 2001), as reviewed by van Donk & van de Bund (2002).”