Seasonality of planktonic ciliated protozoa in 20 subtropical Florida lakes of varying trophic state

Abstract

The planktonic ciliate populations of 20 Florida lakes ranging from oligotrophic to hypereutrophic were examined monthly for one year. Oligotrophic lakes displayed abundance peaks during fall mixis and biomass peaks in late winter and fall. Mesotrophic systems exhibited a spring-fall bimodality in ciliate abundance with a biomass maxima occurring during fall. Eutrophic/hypereutrophic lakes had pronounced abundance and biomass maxima during summer, with the large ciliates Plagiopyla nasuta and Paramecium trichium often contributing heavily to the midsummer biomass peak. Members of the Oligotrichida numerically dominated abundance and biomass peaks in oligotrophic lakes while the Scuticociliatida dominated the communities of higher trophic states. Total ciliate abundance and biomass were strongly correlated with chlorophyll a concentrations as were various ciliate taxonomic groups. The relationship between ciliate seasonal distribution in these subtropical lakes with lake thermal regimes and trophic state is discussed.

The trophic role and impact of plankton ciliates in the microbial web structure of a tropical polymictic lake dominated by filamentous cyanobacteria

“…The ciliate composition to the genus level at Catemaco resembles the composition found at other shallow tropical freshwater ecosystems, such as those reported by Bagatini et al (2013) for 13 Brazilian lakes or Beaver and Crisman (1982, 1990 for eutrophic lakes in Florida. These findings may generalize to an almost cosmopolitan distribution throughout these aquatic systems (Pfister et al, 2002).…”

“…Predation, filamentous cyanobacteria, and ciliate assemblage regulation Jürgens et al (1999b) found abundant small ciliates at a temperate hypertrophic lake and determined that their (Beaver and Crisman, 1990) East Lake, USA Mesotrophic 86 (max) (Beaver and Crisman, 1990) Lake Scott, USA Eutrophic 356 (avg) (Beaver and Crisman, 1990) Lake Houhu, China Mesotrophic 35.5 (avg) (Song, 2000) Lake Nani Tal, India Eutrophic 55-116 (min-max) (Shukla and Gupta, 2001 (Havens et al, 2007), and the authors stated that fish predation must exert a stronger top-down control on the pelagic food web in subtropical lakes than in temperate lakes of similar trophic status. Catemaco's plankton assemblage is the result of selective predation pressure by planktivorous fish, which prey on the larger zooplankton, including the large non-selective daphnids that graze on cyanobacterial trichomes and consume the more edible phytoplankton species, thus leaving behind trichome-enriched water (Komárková and Tavera, 2003).…”

“…Moreover, the ciliate importance to the food web increases with higher primary productivity (Sherr and Sherr, 2002), although it remains to be shown if this relationship holds true for tropical lakes, such as Catemaco. The nature of lacustrine trophic microbial web components and their interactions have been studied for temperate lakes with different trophic statuses (Straškrabová et al, 1999;Pfister et al, 2002;Auer et al, 2004;Chróst et al, 2009;Agasild et al, 2013;Van Wichelen et al, 2013), including eutrophic temperate lakes affected by cyanobacterial blooms (Moustaka-Gouni et al, 2006;Zingel et al, 2007;Zingel and Nõges, 2010), shallow soda lakes of Africa (Burian et al, 2013), relatively shallow eutrophic lakes, deep oligotrophic tropical lakes of Eastern Africa (Yasindi and Taylor, 2003), deep athalassohaline lakes of North America Peštová et al, 2008), and shallow subtropical lakes with differing trophic statuses (Beaver and Crisman, 1989;Beaver and Crisman, 1990;Gomes and Godinho, 2003;MachadoVelho et al, 2005;Havens et al, 2007;Bagatini et al, 2013;Machado-Velho et al, 2013). These studies have demonstrated that microbial food webs, particularly the composition, abundance, biomass and diversity of ciliates, present specific responses to the geographic, climatic and ecological features of different lakes and reservoirs.…”

Vertical microzonation of ciliates in cryoconite holes in Ecology Glacier, King George Island

“…Temperature is another factor apparently influencing succession of ciliates. Accord− ing to Beaver and Crisman (1990) the growth and reproduction of freshwater ciliates are strongly correlated with temperature. As shown by previous research by Finlay (1980) the water temperature has additionally a significant influence on the occur− rence of groups of ciliates in significantly fertile reservoirs.…”

The ciliate communities of different habitats of lake massaciuccoli (Tuscany): Species composition and distribution

“…More recently, specific attention has also been addressed to the description of ciliates belonging to the planktonic and benthonic microcommunities of lakes (Bark, 1981;Madoni, 1989Madoni, , 1990Beaver & Crisman, 1990;Laybourn-Pany et al, 1990a), reservoirs (Simek et al, 1990), and rivers (Baldock & Sleigh, 1988;Grabacka 1988;Carlough & Meyer, 1989;Blatterer & Foissner, 1990;Grolière et al, 1990;Finlay et al, 1993). As far as the Italian lakes are concerned, only the ciliate communities of Lake Maggiore, Lake Orta (Ruggiu, 1965(Ruggiu, , 1969, and of an artificial lake in the Tusco-Emilian Apennines (Madoni, 1989) have been studied.…”