Rotifer community structure in three shallow lakes: seasonal fluctuations and explanatory factors

Abstract

The present work aimed at studying the rotifer communities of three shallow eutrophic lakes in Portugal (lakes Mira, Vela and Linhos). At the time of the study, Mira and Vela faced large inputs of allochthonous nutrients, while Linhos was facing terrestrialisation, with cycles of dominance-senescence of macrophytes.

Untitled

“…It is known that there is a positive correlation between temperature and species richness of zooplankton in aquatic environments (Matsubara, 1993;Castro et al, 2005;Hessen et al, 2007). In the present study, species richness of zooplankton is positively affected by increasing temperature, so our study supports the hypothesis that species richness of zooplankton is positively affected by increasing temperature.…”

Effects of seasonal succession and water pollution on the protozoan community structure in an eutrophic lake

“…Using PCA and CCA techniques, different biological groups, such as phytoplankton community (Kalin et al, 2001), ostracods (Kulkoyluoglu, 2005), rotifer (Castro et al, 2005) and macrophyte community (Hansel-Welch et al, 2003) were employed to research their relationships with physical and chemical changes in lake water quality. These studies showed that environmental variables, such as TP, arsenic and total suspended solid (TSS), etc.…”

Epiphytic metazoans on emergent macrophytes in oxbow lakes of the Krapina River, Croatia: differences related to plant species and limnological conditions

“…This could be explained by the decreasing role of macrophytes as shelter for zooplankton at a higher trophic level, as water turbidity increased and transparency decreased (CASTRO et al 2005, ESTLANDER et al 2009). Thus Iris belt in KO1 was not a favourable habitat for epiphytic metazoans and consequently low grazing on algae and detritus was expressed as higher AFDMe.…”

“…Shallow lakes are unique fresh water ecosystems, long overlooked in limnological research, despite their great biodiversity of algae, macrophytes, plankton, nekton and benthos (CASTRO et al 2005). Many of these shallow lakes are endangered by eutrophication, acidification and introduction of invasive species (KALFF 2002).…”