Life‐history traits of lake plankton species may govern their phenological response to climate warming

Abstract

A prominent response of temperate aquatic ecosystems to climate warming is changes in phenology -advancements or delays in annually reoccurring events in an organism's life cycle. The exact seasonal timing of warming, in conjunction with species-specific lifehistory events such as emergence from resting stages, timing of spawning, generation times, or stage-specific prey requirements, may determine the nature of a species' response. We demonstrate that recent climate-induced shifts in the phenology of lake phytoplankton and zooplankton species in a temperate eutrophic lake (Mü ggelsee, Germany) differed according to differences in their characteristic life cycles. Fastgrowing plankton in spring (diatoms, Daphnia) showed significant and synchronous forward movements by about 1 month, induced by concurrent earlier ice break-up dates (diatoms) and higher spring water temperature (Daphnia). No such synchrony was observed for slow-growing summer zooplankton species with longer and more complex life cycles (copepods, larvae of the mussel Dreissena polymorpha). Although coexisting, the summer plankton responded species specifically to seasonal warming trends, depending on whether the timing of warming matched their individual thermal requirements at decisive developmental stages such as emergence from diapause (copepods), or spawning (Dreissena). Others did not change their phenology significantly, but nevertheless, increased in abundances. We show that the detailed seasonal pattern of warming influences the response of phyto-and zooplankton species to climate change, and point to the diverse nature of responses for species exhibiting complex life-history traits.

Recent climate extremes alter alpine lake ecosystems

“…Low biomass is best attributed to lower P concentrations in these P-limited lakes (22). Shorter ice-free growing seasons likely also were important (23). Although silica concentrations were lower, they remained Ͼ0.5 mg⅐liter Ϫ1 , the concentration below which the growth of siliceous algal species might be limited (24).…”

Spring phenological responses of marine and freshwater plankton to changing temperature and light conditions

“…A large number of studies have reported that the timing and magnitude of seasonal plankton blooms are shifting in response to climate change (Adrian et al 2006;Edwards and Richardson 2004;Meis et al 2009;Shimoda et al 2011). Plankton blooms are important features in seasonal aquatic environments where they drive many ecosystem and community processes and are a major source of energy input for higher trophic levels (Hjermann et al 2007;Smayda 1997;Winder and Cloern 2010).…”

Reorganization of algal communities in the Lake of the Woods (Ontario, Canada) in response to turn‐of‐the‐century damming and recent warming

“…), indicating that elevated TP is not a necessary pre-condition for blooms. Other warming-mediated effects include phenological changes in primary production that have been found to lead to trophic mismatches in freshwater aquatic ecosystems (Winder and Schindler 2004;Adrian et al 2006), with cascading implications throughout food webs. At a finer taxonomic scale, climate-driven changes in diatom species composition resulting in an increase in planktonic taxa have been reported across a wide spectrum of lake ecosystems throughout the Northern Hemisphere (Smol et al 2005;Smol and Douglas 2007;Rü hland et al 2008).…”